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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28375203">thin section</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplefennels7/pseuds/acezukos'>acezukos (purplefennels7)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>stemverse: the earth science au [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Avatar: The Last Airbender</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arguing, Established Relationship, M/M, Married Couple, i guess...it got out of hand, ofc is piandao's friend, the earth science pianjeong au</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:07:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,118</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28375203</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplefennels7/pseuds/acezukos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>What they have is almost perfect, Piandao thinks, and surprises himself with the barest hard edge of resentment in it. Almost, but not quite. He’s loved Jeong Jeong almost his entire life and damn it he wants people to know. This is something that they can give themselves, if only they could dare to try. </p><p>or: the one where married professor life isn't all it's cracked up to be. but there's always another day, and another try; and love, and a little bit of communication, will carry them through in the end.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Background Sokka/Zuko, Jeong Jeong/Piandao (Avatar)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>stemverse: the earth science au [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1845751</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>95</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>thin section</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hello, i have nothing to say for myself. this has plagued me for four months it was supposed to be a 5k domestic fic and then things happened. i just can't resist coming back to this verse and would it really be one of my pianjeong fics if it didn't explode far past what i expected? no.<br/>all my love to the mmc discord for sprinting nearly 10k worth of words with me for this alone. y'all are the real mvps. and to s, for helping me pull together the middle section; i couldn't have done it without you.<br/>hope you enjoy &lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The rumours start up on day one of the new semester, just like always. At the end of Piandao’s first course section, the upperclassmen start whispering and raising eyebrows, and as the lights come back on he closes his laptop and drags a stool out from the side of the room, and takes his sweet time getting comfortable. </p><p>“Professor,” someone calls out from the back of the room, “how was your summer?” And that’s how it always starts. It’s a different story every semester, but the constant thread is that he always refers to the other person as <em> his partner, </em> and that the story will involve a gross misuse of field equipment and at least one vaguely criminal incident. </p><p>“And,” he says into the ensuing stunned silence, “they’re someone most of you will probably know. Class dismissed.” He doesn’t say another word about the topic until everyone’s left the room, only answering questions about the course material and responding to everyone else with an enigmatic smile, wedding ring on full display on his left hand.</p><p>On his way out of the building Piandao taps gently on the door of the office next to the soil lab. He gets no response, and when he pushes the door open it’s dark and empty. Jeong Jeong’s bag is gone from the coat rack, but the blue coat he’d left the house with is still hanging over the back of the desk chair. He crosses the room to pick it up, folding it neatly and tucking it through the strap of his bag. On a whim, he plucks a sticky note off the pad on the desk and scribbles a <em> Good morning </em> and a little heart, sticking it to the corner of the monitor for him to find in the morning. </p><p>After locking the door with the spare key he keeps on his lanyard - Jeong Jeong’s never locked his door once even though he keeps samples worth ten thousand dollars in there - he sticks his head into the lab itself. It’s dark inside, but one of the two soil science undergrads, Toph, is poking at a sample tray in the corner. She raises her head when the door creaks.</p><p>“Hello, Toph,” Piandao says, stepping fully into the lab and propping the door open with his foot, flicking the lights halfway on. </p><p>“Hey, Piandao, he’s not here,” she says. “Left a while ago, said to tell you something about East Street?”</p><p>“Oh, he’s cooking. Thanks.” Her eyebrows crease, but then she just shrugs and puts a little bit of dirt into her mouth.</p><p>“You do you. If you see Zuko can you tell him he owes me seven bucks?” He’s so used to being a middleman through association for his (not-)favourite advisee that he just nods, then realizes she can’t see him and repeats himself aloud.</p><p>“Is this about the betting pool I don’t know about?” he asks, because he wouldn’t put it past the upperclassmen to have already started it back up even though it’s barely a week into the semester. She laughs and shakes her head.</p><p>“No, I bought him food last week and he keeps forgetting. That betting pool, though - are you gonna do anything anytime soon? Could win me a lot.”</p><p>“Don’t forget you’re still a student.” She shrugs, unbothered.</p><p>“Whatever. Are you going to, though?” He can see why she and Zuko are friends - they have the same stubborn streak, even though he wonders how her perpetual irreverence hasn’t sent him into cardiac arrest yet. </p><p>“Not that I know of,” he replies. After all, he does the thing with the stories for a reason; it’s their compromise. He gets to brag about his husband while indulging Jeong Jeong’s perpetual embargo against any of his students knowing anything about him. </p><p>And, if pressed, he finds the chaos of everyone trying to figure it out kind of funny. As far as he’s aware, Toph is the only person in the department who’s actually in the know, and he still isn’t sure how she’d done it. “I should be getting home, though, and shouldn’t you be, too? It’s nearly six.”</p><p>“I’ll get there eventually. Tell Jeong Jeong not to leave the blind girl alone in the lab, it’ll freak him out.” </p><p>“Will do.” The grin she directs at him is equally as effective even though it’s trained a few feet to his left, and reminds him uncannily of Jeong Jeong’s expression when he does something like steal samples from the storeroom. No one’s ever heard of a student requesting an advisor before she’d waltzed into Jeong Jeong’s office two weeks into last year and slapped a declaration form onto his desk, but sometimes when they’re at home he actually smiles when he’s talking about her work, which is essentially the equivalent of giving her the Nobel Prize. “‘Night, Toph.”</p><p>He flicks the lights back off on his way out the door, continuing down the hallway to the back staircase out onto the street. The sky is barely darkening yet, and even though it’s already September, the air sits hot and muggy with just the smallest lakeshore breeze to offset it.</p><p>The bus is just pulling into the stop on the opposite curb, and he clutches his bag close to his chest and dashes across the road to board it, waving apologetically to the car that skids to a stop on the crosswalk. </p><p>“Smells good,” he calls as he unlatches the front door and is immediately inundated with the scent of five-flavour soup. </p><p>“I know,” he hears in response, and he rolls his eyes fondly and leans down to take off his shoes. The other pair of hiking boots on the mat have their backs bent out of shape, and he sighs and reaches over to fix them before lining them up parallel to his own and making his way further into the house in his socks. </p><p>Jeong Jeong is in the kitchen, stirring a wooden spoon through the wok pot and occasionally lifting it up for a taste. “So, which one of my misdeeds have you revealed to the department today?” he asks as Piandao drops his bag on the kitchen table and comes over to wash his hands in the sink, flicking some of the excess water in his direction. </p><p><em> “Misdeeds,” </em> Piandao replies, making quotation marks in the air as he dries his hands and moves to put his arms around his waist. “I know you’re proud of those, don’t lie.” Jeong Jeong grins and turns his head up a little, and Piandao leans in for a proper kiss hello.</p><p>“Damn right I am,” he says when they part. Piandao props his chin atop his head, messing up his already-mussed hair. “Anything for scientific inquiry. Anyway, go on, what are you telling the idiots?” </p><p>“Don’t call the undergrads idiots, it’s not nice. I did the one with the sheep this time, ‘cause I was in the storeroom in the morning and the stuff you brought back from that trip are actually good samples. Might use them for lab, actually.”</p><p>“No, the undergrads are definitely idiots. Remember the time that I stole the thin section machine?” Piandao snorts and plucks the spoon from Jeong Jeong’s hand, blowing on the soup and taking a sip. “Give that back.”</p><p>“I think that says more about you than it does about the undergraduate population as a whole, actually. The soup’s good, by the way, but it needs more star anise.” He releases him and leans over to the spice rack to grab the little mason jar of anise, dropping two into the pot before he can ask for them.</p><p>“You should’ve told that story instead,” Jeong Jeong says, pecking him on the cheek in thanks and returning to stirring. “The sheep one is lame - although you’re right, those samples were incredible.” </p><p>“Best not to give any of them ideas, just in case someone decides to pull the same trick. I really don’t think admin will approve <em> another </em> one - yes, I know that wasn’t you for once, and Song already apologized, multiple times, but still.”</p><p>Jeong Jeong rolls his eyes and tosses the spoon into the sink, putting the big glass lid over the pot and turning the heat down.</p><p>“Speaking of anise - you know the absolutely fucked up thing I saw today?” he says as he pulls a pair of mismatched bowls out of the cabinet and sets them down between the wok and the stove. “Some white boy in my 3pm was having a snack and you know what he pulled out of his backpack? Plain white bread. Nothing else. Not even, like, <em> peanut butter. </em> Just took a whole bite of a slice of white bread.”</p><p>“I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you correctly,” Piandao says, blinking incredulously as Jeong Jeong walks over to the other counter and hops up to sit on it. “White bread?”</p><p>“Yup. Just plain white bread.” Jeong Jeong deadpans, a thousand-yard stare on his face. “‘S why I made the five-flavour tonight. I need that out of my brain.”</p><p>“I hate that. C’mon, come here. I need to forget that.” Jeong Jeong leans away, though, shaking a finger in Piandao’s face.</p><p>“No you don’t, you’re not going to kiss me just for the spices. I feel used.” Piandao snorts and curls his fingers around his hand, bringing it up to press his mouth against his wedding ring.</p><p>“I’m kissing you ‘cause I love you, the spices are just a bonus.”</p><p>“You’re such a sap, it’s making me sick,” Jeong Jeong grumbles, but tips his head to kiss him anyway. And he does taste like spices, and like memory; coming home from school to the smell of the slow cooker, drinking spiced soup in the dead of winter, making ramen in Lee’s illegal wok pot and blacking out the whole dorm floor in the attempt. </p><p>He presses closer, one of Jeong Jeong’s hands sliding around the back of his neck to tug him in, and he sighs into his mouth, feeling the last of the tension slipping out of his shoulders. </p><p>Something pops in the wok and Piandao pulls away; Jeong Jeong is taller than him like this, and he has to go up on his toes to brush a kiss over the bridge of his nose just to see him scrunch it up.</p><p>“Y’should check on that,” he says, his hands going to Jeong Jeong’s waist as he moves to jump off the counter. “Remember the time Lee and I broke his wok in second semester-”</p><p>“The time the whole third floor was dark for three days because the wiring was fifteen years old and fucked up?” Jeong Jeong snorts, turning the heat off and starting to spoon soup into the bowls. “I don’t know how you didn’t get caught for that.”</p><p>“Anything could’ve killed that wiring, let’s be real. We were doing the university a favour.” </p><p>“I’m sure our tuition dollars beg to differ.” </p><p>“My wallet certainly did when he made me buy him a new one - it wasn’t even my fault, how did I know that leaving the heat on for half an hour would do that?” </p><p>Piandao drops a spoon into each bowl and goes over to the dining room to move his bag, sighing when he sees that the space that’d been clear in the morning has been overrun by papers again. </p><p>“Do we need to have the ‘four-fifths of this table is already ungraded papers and we can leave one space for eating’ conversation again?”</p><p>“I was going to move them, <em>oops, </em>just stick them under the bit of granite over on the left,” Jeong Jeong replies over the clattering as he dumps the wok and utensils into the sink. Piandao sighs again and sweeps the papers up, wincing a little when he sees that some of them are the thesis notes he’d been meaning to get back to his grad students weeks ago. So he isn’t entirely blameless in the paper situation, so what. Jeong Jeong’s a lot worse. “Anyway, the wok pot thing was just common sense.”</p><p>“Rich coming from someone who set a potato on fire because he didn’t know how to use the microwave.” </p><p>Jeong Jeong makes his way over to put the bowls down on the small space on the table that Piandao has cleared, throwing himself into one of the chairs with a pout.</p><p>“I thought we agreed we weren’t going to bring that up.”</p><p>“Clean up the papers next time and maybe I won’t,” Piandao says; he’s spent years attempting to build up immunity to that look. As long as he doesn’t break out the pet names, he can reliably say that he’s getting there. </p><p>They chat idly over the soup, about their respective days and the bits of lab work they’d snuck in during the passing periods, and the number of plausibly-queer students in each of their classes. It’s a game they’ve been playing for going on decades now, trying to clock which flannel-wearers are generic earth scientists and which are queer, or both. </p><p>“Toph says not to leave the blind girl alone in the lab, by the way,” he says, and Jeong Jeong snorts. </p><p>“Like I could stop her.” Even though this must be the thousandth time, it’s still weird to see him looking openly proud, eyes softening over the rim of his bowl.</p><p>“I’m glad you’ve finally found a student that you actually like,” he comments. Jeong Jeong squints at him. </p><p>“I don’t like any of my students.”</p><p>“Sure, and that’s why you have office hours every day.”</p><p>“She likes to sit in my office, and I don’t need the lights anyway.” Piandao rolls his eyes - they both know the truth, and it’s a nice change for someone other than himself to be practically adopting undergraduates.</p><p>He collects both of their empty bowls and gets up to take them into the kitchen, only for Jeong Jeong to get up with him and dart over to plant himself in front of the sink.</p><p>“Seriously?” he asks as Jeong Jeong smirks up at him. “Jay Jay, light of my life, may I please get to the sink?”</p><p>“For a price, maybe.” Piandao raises his eyebrows, but obligingly puts one of the bowls down and plants a loud, exaggerated kiss onto his cheek. </p><p>“Good enough?” Jeong Jeong pulls out the pout again, widening brown eyes at him, and when he leans in to kiss him for real he thinks that maybe this right here is what marriage is; going through the same ridiculous negotiations over the washing up every day and indulging it anyway, one of a thousand little incomprehensible rituals.</p><p>Jeong Jeong looks soft and satisfied when he pulls away, nudging their noses briefly against each other. </p><p>“Gotcha,” Piandao says, then dumps the dish towel on his head and nudges him aside to get to the sink in one motion. Jeong Jeong splutters and yanks the towel away, using it to cuff Piandao lightly in the side.</p><p>“Smartass.” </p><p>For all his whinging, though, he settles in at his side and accepts the wet dishes that Piandao hands him without too much complaint, towelling off most of the water and propping them out on the countertop to air-dry. He goes up on his toes when they’re done to drop a chaste kiss on his mouth, and then gives him a wicked grin and tosses the damp towel into his face.</p><p>“Payback’s a bitch, huh?” he snickers, and Piandao reaches out to drag his damp hands through his hair and send it falling over his forehead in a silvery cascade.</p><p>“I can’t believe I married you.” Jeong Jeong sticks his tongue out and takes the dish towel back, hooking it onto the side of the cabinet.</p><p>“Lemme guess, it was for my stunning personality,” he says as Piandao makes his way towards the staircase so he can finally change out of his work clothes. “Or, like, love or whatever.”</p><p>“Or whatever.” By the time he returns, his hair loose around his face and dressed in an oversized t-shirt with the outline of the Yucatan peninsula on it, Jeong Jeong has curled up on the couch with a paper and a container of dried seaweed snacks, a black pen tucked behind his ear. He hops to his feet as Piandao retrieves the thesis notes and his own pen and stretches out along the couch, leaning back against the armrest. As soon as he’s settled Jeong Jeong climbs into his lap, back snug against his chest, and Piandao smiles fondly and presses a kiss into his hair. </p><p>“Comfortable?” </p><p>“Yeah. Seaweed snack?” Jeong Jeong replies, holding the little box up over his head. </p><p>“Please.” Piandao carefully folds the top one in half, trying and failing not to get bits everywhere. Jeong Jeong takes the next two with much less elegance, though not that many more crumbs, and Piandao just resigns himself to having to vacuum the cushions eventually. “You need your roots redone, by the way,” he says, crunching idly at the seaweed and scraping his fingers over Jeong Jeong’s part where his natural dark colour is starting to show against the silver dye. He presses back into the touch and says nothing for a long minute. </p><p>“I might let it go.” Piandao’s eyebrows shoot up when he eventually speaks, eyes fixed determinedly on the page. “Just grow it out. Maybe...I’ll just go natural for a while?” </p><p>“Really?” he says as nonchalantly as he can. The last time he’d seen Jeong Jeong without his hair dyed had been right after college; he’d been silver when he’d come back, and silver all through their contentious reconnection, and silver in their wedding pictures with a suit and honest-to-god cape to match. Once he’d grown it out to a reasonable length the colour had stopped being so disconcerting, and it’s grown on him at this point. </p><p>“Mhm. Think it’s time for a change.” He puts another piece of seaweed in his mouth and then twists around to look at Piandao face to face, brown eyes wide and earnest. There’s a tinge of nervousness in his gaze, like he’s worried Piandao won’t approve, and that just won’t do. He wants to ask, but if Jeong Jeong’s going to tell him then he’ll get around to it in his own time. </p><p>“Okay, I think it’ll look nice,” he says instead, and leans forward to kiss him, tasting the tang of salt and the sweet undertone of the seaweed.</p><p>“‘Kay. Love you,” Jeong Jeong affirms, nudging quick kisses along his jawline before turning back around and picking up his abandoned article.</p><p>“Love you, too.” He just sits there for a while, playing with the ends of Jeong Jeong’s hair where it’s gone wavy from the humidity as he turns pages and makes quiet sounds to himself, occasionally taking the pen from behind his ear to scribble a note in the margins. When Piandao eventually moves to pick up his abandoned notes, Jeong Jeong catches his hand and kisses his knuckles, lips dry and warm against his skin. Piandao taps him on the nose when he lets go, grinning when he blinks in surprise.</p><p>They spend the rest of the evening there, opening a second container of seaweed when the first one runs out and accidentally spilling half of it into the couch cushions when they both try and reach for a piece at the same time without looking. </p><p>“You’re cleaning that up,” Jeong Jeong says immediately, holding the rest of the box out of reach and starting to pick up the intact pieces.</p><p>“I’m not the one who dropped the box,” Piandao retorts.</p><p>“Come on, love, you said you were going to vacuum anyway,” and the look on his face says that he knows exactly what he’s doing with that name.</p><p>“That isn’t fair - and don’t you dare say-”</p><p>“Love and war?”</p><p>“You are such a cliche.”</p><p>Piandao does end up vacuuming, but he <em> had </em> been meaning to do it. The way Jeong Jeong presses him up against the cleaned cushions and kisses him for a long time after and says <em> thank you, darling </em> is just a bonus.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Midterm season takes everyone by surprise, just like it does every year, and the entire department descends into a fog of stress and caffeine. One would think that after this many attempts the professors would’ve figured out that more often than not, grant applications and exams end up happening at the same time and they should book their lab hours early. In reality, it becomes just as common to see them leaving the buildings at three in the morning as it is to see students leaving the libraries at the same hour, which leads to a number of awkward bus and sidewalk encounters. Piandao’s run into Sokka on the path between the engineering and earth science buildings four separate times in as many days, although he suspects that that may just be their shared habit of losing track of time at work.</p><p>It’s Sunday night on the second week of midterms when Piandao bolts awake at 1:30 in the morning with a thought about the thin sections he’d been showing in mineralogy earlier that week. He’s alone in bed already, and there’s a post-it note taped to his forehead. When he puts out a hand to pat against Jeong Jeong’s side the sheets are cool to the touch.</p><p>“One of those nights for both of us, huh,” he huffs to himself as he grabs a yellow legal pad off the bedside table to write down his thought before it leaves him.</p><p>A couple bullet points later, he tosses the pad onto the unmade covers on the other side of the bed and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, sliding back down to lie on his back. He honestly could go back to sleep, he’s been up until the wee hours almost every day for the past week grading papers at the kitchen table while Jeong Jeong types away at a grant proposal across from him, but there’s something niggling at the back of his mind and it would really help if he could just <em> see </em> the sample instead of trying to call it up from memory.</p><p>His fingers brush the post-it on his head, which he’s honestly forgotten about until now, and he pushes himself back up to unstick the paper and click on the bedside lamp to read it. </p><p><em> In the lab, back sometime, love you, </em> it says in Jeong Jeong’s disaster of a mix between print and cursive. They tend to leave notes if they’re actually leaving the house, just because Piandao has the unfortunate tendency to forget things that he’s told while mostly asleep and assumes that everyone has the same problem. </p><p>He sticks the note to the lampshade and pushes the covers back, resigning himself to yet another sleepless night. If he’d married anyone a touch less academic he’s pretty sure they would’ve gone down in flames by now - well, it’s been, god, almost a decade already and the old scars are just that, <em> old, </em> but he still tends not to think about how they almost had.</p><p>He looks at the words <em> love you </em> as he shrugs a sweater over his head and leans over to turn the light off, how they loop across the bottom of the paper casual as anything, and smiles. They’re past that now, and he doesn’t need the rings on their fingers to know that what they have here, now, is forever.</p><p>Jeong Jeong would laugh and tell him he’s going sappy in his old age if he could hear what he’s thinking, but Piandao knows better, knows how he’ll smile softly to himself when he thinks Piandao isn’t looking. He pauses in the kitchen to fill a thermos with hot water and drop a bag of Earl Grey into it; he doesn’t anticipate being out all night but Jeong Jeong has never once come home before class starts when he gets into one of these research funks. </p><p>The Hexagon is the newest building on campus and it shows; the doors slide open with the barest whisper of a touch and Piandao nearly falls over because he’s operating on sleep-deprived instinct and applies the full-bodied haul needed to open anything in the earth science building. He’s honestly still surprised that they’d managed to secure the proper funding, because everything goes to engineering anyway and some years it feels like they can barely get the broken projectors replaced, much less the door hinges oiled.</p><p>The mineralogy and soil labs sit across from each other on one half of the second floor, and as the elevator hisses upwards he wonders idly whether Jeong Jeong is here or in the baby labs in the other building. Even with their note system he just has to insert a little mystery.</p><p>The corridor to the labs is already lit when the elevator doors open, the lights in the soil lab visible even though the translucent shades are drawn over most of the windows. The motion-sensor lights overhead click on as Piandao makes his way down the hall, and he can make out Jeong Jeong’s distinctive shadow bent over one of the tables inside. He pauses outside, debating whether or not to go in to drop off the tea at least, but if he does then he probably isn’t going to end up doing the work he’s here for.</p><p>He ghosts his hand across the doorknob, then pulls it back, continuing down the hall to his own lab and tapping his card against the reader. The outer door clicks open, and he holds it open to let the light in as he flicks through his collection of keys for the one he’s labelled “hex lab,” inked green to match the rest of his work keys. Jeong Jeong will probably still be there when he leaves.</p><p>Or, it turns out, he’ll come to him. He’s pinning a new set of spectrum printouts up on the floor-to-ceiling whiteboard, using the rock magnets one of his grad students had gotten him for the holidays last year, when the unlocked door clicks open and suddenly the lab is full of much more noise than the steady hum of the machinery. </p><p>He places the song that Jeong Jeong is very loudly singing, after a second, as Good Old-Fashioned Lover Boy, and hums the backing vocals for a bar or two before he interrupts.</p><p>“Jay Jay, it’s-” he glances at the clock in the corner of his screen- “2:39 in the morning.” Jeong Jeong pauses at the end of the next line and gives him a baleful look.</p><p>“And? Does it look like there’s anyone else here?”</p><p>“I’m here, and <em> I </em> am doing work,” he replies slowly, sticking the edge of a paper into his mouth so he can reach up to unpin an old article from the top of the board.</p><p>“C’mon, stop looking at shiny things, it’s 2am let’s go home,” Jeong Jeong says without acknowledging Piandao’s statement, draping himself dramatically across the corner of the table so he’s looking at Piandao upside-down. </p><p>“I know that you know that my ‘shiny things’ are the basic components of your dirt, so I won’t say it again.”</p><p>“No, you don’t have to say it again,” he sing-songs, and Piandao looks over in muted surprise. “‘Cause you know that I don’t care.” </p><p>“Why are you like this?” Piandao asks the room at large. Unfortunately, his whiteboard doesn’t answer, leaving him stuck with Jeong Jeong, who just winks at him.</p><p>“You love me like this.” He rolls his eyes, turning back from the whiteboard and sitting back down in front of his microscope.</p><p>“I wonder why.” He pushes his sleeves up and puts his eyes to the ‘scope, trying to project a general air of business, but Jeong Jeong just stays there, lying halfway across the table and looking intently at him. “You can go home, if you want,” he says eventually, after the staring starts threatening to burn holes in his sweater. “It <em> is </em> two in the morning.”</p><p>“Not if you aren’t, no.” Piandao rolls his eyes as best he can behind the eyepiece.</p><p>“Alright, suit yourself.”</p><p>Piandao tries his best to keep working even as Jeong Jeong gets up and starts poking at things on the benchtop, reminding himself that his husband is a fully degreed professor and can be let loose in a lab with less potential damage than an undergraduate. A couple minutes later, he comes back to the extra microscope humming the first couple bars of Killer Queen and carrying what turns out to be a box full of quartz.</p><p>“I’m just looking at it, promise,” he says when he catches Piandao watching him.</p><p>“I didn’t say a thing.” </p><p>He does, indeed, just seem to be looking at it the next two times Piandao glances over out of the corner of his eye, and anyway, it’s just quartz. If he manages to break it there’s a hundred more boxes like it sitting around in the storerooms, and if Jeong Jeong could hear him questioning his ability to use a microscope he’d probably kill him. </p><p>Jeong Jeong isn’t particularly distracting for the next stretch of time, just humming and turning things this way and that on the microscope stage. Piandao keeps having to remind himself that no matter how much he wants to just sit and stare, he really does have to get this done now that he’s gotten started. He can’t help sneaking occasional glances, though, at the curve of his spine bent over the counter with his unruly hair, now closer to a black and silver ombre than anything else, falling over his face. </p><p>Piandao hasn’t seen him like this, absorbed in work and paying no mind to anything else around him, since probably when they’d shared a lab years before they’d been married. It’s one of those things that they just don’t do - keeping their work lives separate and all that. He gets it, he does, and the concept of his students knowing exactly who he’s married to <em> is </em> sort of weird, but times like this just make him wonder what it would be like to have this all the time. It’s stupid and sappy but he does miss his husband when they’re both at work, maybe even more so because they see each other all the time but have to keep up the professional distance anyway. </p><p>For now, he’ll just have to settle for this moment, even under the harsh fluorescents of the lab, where he can have this. </p><p>What they have is almost perfect, he thinks, and surprises himself with the barest hard edge of resentment in it. Almost, but not quite, and maybe he should be ashamed of himself for wanting more when they’d both spent considerable amounts of time thinking they’d never see each other again, but he’s loved Jeong Jeong almost his entire life and damn it he wants people to know. Wants it known that they’re spoken for. They deserve perfection, after everything, and this is something that they can give themselves, if only they could dare to try. </p><p>Abruptly he realizes that he’s been staring into space for a while and the lab has gone oddly quiet. When he pulls his eyes back into focus he sees Jeong Jeong slumped over the benchtop, head pillowed on his arm and breathing gone quiet and even, and he shakes his head fondly. </p><p>“I said you could go home if you were tired,” he mumbles, getting up from his stool and tiptoeing over to where he’s hooked his coat onto the door handle. He dims half the lights on his way back, going over to lay it gently over Jeong Jeong’s shoulders. He shifts slightly when the fabric settles, but doesn’t wake, and Piandao kisses his forehead with a smile before moving back over to his workstation. </p><p>He’s just finishing his last set of observations when Jeong Jeong shifts and raises his head, looking around at the dimmed lab and squinting at Piandao in his pool of light.</p><p>“Ah, hell, did I fall asleep?” He pulls at the lapel of the coat, then throws an accusing glance over his shoulder at the corresponding empty coat hook. “Did you put your coat over me?” </p><p>Piandao says nothing, but his face evidently does all the talking for him. Jeong Jeong rolls his eyes, pushing up off the stool and shrugging the coat on. </p><p>“Well, it’s mine now. Can we go now? You look done.” Piandao reaches over to sweep his hair out of his eyes, and he quirks a grin and steps over to press against his side as he switches off his microscope and returns the samples to their rack. </p><p>“Yes, we can go. Did you not bring a coat?” he asks, picking up both their bags from the floor and handing Jeong Jeong his. </p><p>“Nope. It’s barely cold, you wimp.” Piandao chooses not to point out that he’s still wearing his jacket. </p><p>Once they get out into the hallway, the door locking itself behind them, Jeong Jeong glances hastily at the rest of the darkened labs before linking his arm through Piandao’s, leaning slightly against him as they make their way out of the building. They’re met with a sharp, chilly wind when they step through the doors, biting right through Piandao’s sweater and blowing back the sides of his coat where Jeong Jeong has neglected to button them. </p><p>“Definitely cold,” Piandao comments, watching Jeong Jeong trying to wrangle the flaps into place without releasing their linked arms. </p><p>“No it isn’t.” He’s clearly just saying it to be contrary, though, as he puts together just enough buttons to make the coat stay closed. </p><p>“I brought you tea, you know,” he says as they cross the road. <em> If you were that tired. </em> Jeong Jeong perks up at that, taking a hand out of his pocket to poke at Piandao’s bag. </p><p>“And you didn’t give it to me?” </p><p>“When would I have had time to do that? You were here for like, five minutes and then you fell asleep.”</p><p>“Before I fell asleep, obviously. Also, I was there for more than half an hour.” Piandao squints at him, trying to figure out where the time had gone - he could’ve sworn that he’d just looked away for a minute.</p><p>“Look, you know I have a tenuous grasp on time as it is, and it’s midterms anyway.” Jeong Jeong rolls his eyes, finally extracting the thermos and popping the lid open. “Don’t drink that, it’s nearly three.”</p><p>“No, I still need to finish one grant app when we get home, and if you didn’t want me to drink it then you shouldn’t have told me about it.” He caps the statement off by taking a long pull from the mug, eyes slipping shut as he swallows. “This is good. Thank you, love.” </p><p>Piandao grins in spite of himself. “You’re welcome, but I don’t want to hear anything out of you about it being my fault you were awake all night.”</p><p>“No promises.”</p><p>It’ll happen anyway, of course, but at least he tried.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Piandao finds Zuko in a closet. Or, more accurately, he finds Zuko <em> and Sokka </em> in a closet. And there’s the small matter of it being two in the morning. </p><p>He had come in to transfer some samples out of the storeroom because he’s forgotten that he’s starting one of his juniors in the big lab tomorrow, but as he hears the boys’ footsteps receding away his mind has never been further from mineralogy. He feels oddly thrown, and like he hadn’t done a particularly good job of hiding it. Hopefully the light from behind had been enough to obscure his face. Zuko’s forced nonchalance had certainly been in enough clarity, and Sokka hiding badly behind him. </p><p>He stares at the closed door for another minute, then turns to flip the lights on, shaking his head as if he can physically dispel the moment. It’s fine. Everything is fine.</p><p>Everything is not fine. </p><p>He can’t stop thinking about the flash of almost terror that had passed over Zuko’s face, just before he’d schooled it into indifference. It strobes through the back of his head like an afterimage, like he’s looked into too-bright lights, and suddenly he can’t stand it anymore. </p><p>He hasn’t gotten further than opening the first few storage cabinets, and he shoves them hastily back shut as he throws his jacket back over his shoulders and practically bolts from the room, heedless of the door slamming loudly behind him. Sokka and Zuko are surely long gone, but he takes the whole perimeter of the building at a jog anyway, squinting as his eyes try to adjust to the darkness.</p><p>No one is there, besides a squirrel that chitters at him and races away up a tree, and he stops back out on the sidewalk and sighs, swearing quietly to himself. He isn’t getting any more work done tonight, not like this, and he knows he has to do something but just doesn’t know what. Whatever he does, he can’t mess it up at all because this may be the most important thing he’s ever done and it has nothing to do with his work. Zuko matters, and not just as a student but as a boy that Piandao sees far too much of himself in.</p><p>He half-walks, half-jogs home, jaywalking in long diagonals to avoid the parts of the sidewalks that are being renovated and reciting mineral chemical formulae in a steady spill under the thudding of his heart - he just can’t <em> think </em> but every time he tries he’s paralyzed by the fact that he hasn’t thought of anything. </p><p>The breath he takes when he turns onto their street and catches sight of their porch light casting its gentle glow over the sidewalk feels like his first in an hour, and he fumbles with his keys to find the right one. </p><p>The door clicks shut behind him and he sits down on the floor to take his shoes off, tiptoeing up the stairs in socked feet. Jeong Jeong had been asleep for once when he’d left, face smushed into his pillow and dead to the world, and when he pushes the bedroom door open he’s still curled up in the middle of the bed, having pulled the covers into a twisted nest around him in the interim. </p><p>He stands in the doorway for long minutes, watching Jeong Jeong’s side rise and fall and debating whether or not to wake him up; he knows he’s making something out of nothing here but that doesn’t change the way his hands are shaking. </p><p>Jeong Jeong takes the decision out of his hands, the pattern of his breaths changing abruptly before he rolls over and slits his eyes open.</p><p>“Piandao?” he slurs, squinting at him. Piandao takes a step forward so he can close the door, leaving the room illuminated only by the stripes of moonlight falling in through the blinds. “‘S everything okay?” </p><p>He inhales once, then twice, then blows his breath out and comes to sit on the edge of the bed, brushing his thumb over his cheek.</p><p>“Not really,” he admits in a hushed whisper. Jeong Jeong blinks and sits up before Piandao can stop him, scooting over to wrap him in sleep-warm arms. Piandao sags against him, feeling tense and jittery.</p><p>“What’s wrong? Do I need to fight someone?” Piandao laughs weakly, looking away, but before he can get far there’s a rough palm cupping his cheek to coax him into meeting his husband’s concerned gaze. </p><p>“Found Zuko in a closet,” he says eventually.</p><p>“Wait, like, literally?”</p><p>“Yeah. Him and Sokka, you know, the boy who’s always at the dojo when you pick me up, and no I don’t know if they’re together but-” He stops, dropping his head onto Jeong Jeong’s shoulder and taking a long breath. “Jay Jay, the way he looked at me, felt like he thought I was gonna hit him. I’d never - who made him scared like that, I’ll burn them to the fucking <em> ground.” </em> </p><p>“I know, I’ll be right there with you,” Jeong Jeong says, reaching up to tug the tie out of Piandao’s hastily constructed bun and starting to brush his fingers through his hair, gently separating the knots and leaving it to fall over his shoulders. “You’ve practically adopted that kid, love, I know you’d never, and I think he knows too.” </p><p>Piandao sighs and slumps down onto his side so he can tuck his head into the crook of Jeong Jeong’s neck. His heart is finally slowing, like an instinctive response because Jeong Jeong is only sweet like this when they’re at home and he always uses it when he’s talking Piandao down, knows that calling him <em> darling </em> and <em> my love </em> is really saying <em> you’re safe </em> and <em>I’m here </em> and <em>I won’t go </em> all rolled up into one.</p><p>“I just don’t know what to do,” he says, twisting his hands together until Jeong Jeong hands him the hairtie he’s taken out so he can fidget with that instead. “I need him to know that he’s got me. He’ll be in for office hours tomorrow-”</p><p>“I know what you need.” It’s said with such conviction that Piandao’s nodding along before he really registers the words, and he goes easily when he shifts them around so he can untangle himself from the covers. “Comfort dumplings.”</p><p>“Sweetheart, it’s almost three in the morning,” Piandao huffs in surprise, but Jeong Jeong just grabs his hand to tug him through the door, bare feet quiet against the hardwood floors. He can do nothing except trail along in his wake, feeling a little dazed. </p><p>“Comfort dumplings exist outside the bounds of time,” Jeong Jeong declares, shoving his hair back behind his ears and turning on the light in the kitchen. He lets go of Piandao’s hand to rummage in the freezer, eventually coming up with a ziploc bag that had maybe been a field sample bag in a past life, but now contains frozen dumplings. “Can you grab the sauces?” </p><p>“Uh, sure.” He goes over to the cabinet to take down the cracked plate, the bottles of soy sauce, rice vinegar, and sesame oil clinking against each other as he sets it down on the counter. And then he just sort of stands there in the middle of the kitchen, watching Jeong Jeong line the dumplings up on a plate to put them into the microwave. </p><p>“Don’t just stand there,” Jeong Jeong says, firmly but with no bite to the words as he goes over to the sink and starts rinsing out the empty bag. “You know how to make the sauce, don’t you?”</p><p>“Oh.” Piandao shakes himself, feeling like his brain is submerged in honey. “Sorry, I guess I’m just...not here right now.”</p><p>“That’s why we’re doing this.” He leaves the bag upside down on their bamboo drying rack and comes over to twist his damp hands into Piandao’s shirt, kissing him gently and then letting go to push him towards the counter. “We’ll talk about your situation, but food first.”</p><p>“Okay.” He pulls a plate and fork from their respective places and uncaps the soy sauce, pouring it so it pools in a dark circle across the center of the plate. As he adds a smaller splash of vinegar, Jeong Jeong starts humming something, tapping his nails against the countertop, and Piandao recognizes it as some song off his morning playlist that he’s refused to learn the name of but can sing from memory just because of how often he hears it.</p><p>A single drop of sesame oil completes the mixture, and he swishes the fork through it and brings it to his mouth to taste. </p><p>“It’s good,” he reports, just when the microwave beeps and Jeong Jeong darts over to retrieve the plate, picking it up bare-handed and only wincing a little at the heat.</p><p>“Come on, then,” he says, and then plops right down on the floor and sets the dumplings down in front of him. Piandao picks up the sauce platter and copies him, sitting just close enough for their knees to touch. </p><p>They’d first done comfort dumplings like this on the floor of their shitty campus apartment, back when they’d been far younger and stupider and the biggest thing they’d been facing was honours theses. The flavour is almost exactly identical, though, and he lets out an involuntary sigh as he chews.</p><p>“Feeling better?” Jeong Jeong asks after Piandao’s inhaled several more.</p><p>“Mhm.” He shuts his eyes, tapping his fingers against the handle of his fork, and thinks about Zuko, looking shell-shocked half-shadowed in the recesses of the supply closet. “I...still don’t know what to do.”</p><p>“Like, with your life?” Piandao levels him with an unimpressed glare, and he grins wryly. “Okay, okay. Remember that blazer I have, the queer scientist one with the sequins? So what I’m saying is that you wear that-” </p><p>Piandao chuckles; he does remember. Specifically, the incident when he’d accidentally packed that blazer instead of his regular one for a conference and then shrugged and wore it anyway and received a deluge of emails asking where he’d gotten it in the weeks afterwards.</p><p>“I like the thought, but I think it might be a little...loud,” he says, and nearly receives a fork to the eye as Jeong Jeong throws his hands up despairingly. </p><p>“I can’t believe this. You insult sequins in my house?”</p><p>“It’s my house too,” Piandao protests. </p><p>“And you’re my husband, I’m pretty sure ‘support my fashion choices’ was legally binding.”</p><p>“I never said I didn’t support <em> you </em> wearing it, but - hey, wait.” Jeong Jeong raises his eyebrows, still looking vaguely suspicious of Piandao’s fashion tastes - which, he has no ground to stand on, he once wore one of Piandao’s colanders as a hat, but he isn’t going to go there right now. “I have the shirt that says the same thing, I could wear that. Same message, you know?”</p><p>“Coward. I’m gonna make you one of those blazers too and then you have to wear it.” He does poke Piandao in the cheek with his fork then, but gently, leaving little drops of sauce behind.</p><p>“Hey,” Piandao protests, swiping it off and getting up to wash his hand. “Do you...think that’ll be enough? I mean, he can do a three-point problem in his head but he’s kind of-”</p><p>“Oblivious?” Piandao bristles almost involuntarily.</p><p>“Hey, you’ve met him, what, once?”</p><p>“One, that’s actually not true, and two, protective much?” He’s smirking when Piandao spins around to glare. </p><p>“Oh, okay, so when <em> you </em> adopt an undergrad it’s all <em> she likes to sit in my office </em> but when I do it-?”</p><p>“I never said it was bad,” Jeong Jeong retorts. He pauses then, reaching out to flip a dumpling over so its concave side faces up. Piandao feels suddenly stuck to the spot for no apparent reason, the silence and the quiet glow of the overhead light weighing oddly on his shoulders.</p><p>“You-” he starts, at the same time that Jeong Jeong opens his mouth, eyes still trained firmly on the plate.</p><p>“If you-” </p><p>They both stop, and the ensuing quiet feels just that little bit heavier.</p><p>“Sorry, what were you going to say?” Piandao asks, wiping his hands hastily and dropping back to the floor, a couple feet away from where he’d started as if he’s trying not to spook him. Jeong Jeong just shakes his head, and when he finally looks up he makes eye contact like it’s a challenge.</p><p>“Never mind. It was stupid anyway.”</p><p>“No stupid questions,” Piandao jokes weakly.</p><p>“That’s your thing. Anyway. Don’t worry about it. Just had a thought about my paper.” He hops to his feet and picks up the plates to put in the sink, sticking the last dumpling in his mouth. It’s clearly a lie but Piandao doesn’t have the energy to call him on it. He’ll ask sometime else, when it isn’t nearly four in the morning.</p><p>“Hey, share that,” he says instead, narrowing his eyes at the dumpling. He settles for kissing the last of the flavour off his lips, which he considers quite a fair substitute.</p><p>They make it back into bed eventually - without washing the dishes for once, as a concession to the hour.</p><p>“Thanks,” Piandao says quietly, kissing Jeong Jeong’s hair where he’s tucked his head under his chin. “I shouldn’t have freaked out about it, honestly, but-”</p><p>“It’s ‘cause you care about him, love. I hope this’ll get through to him.” He pauses, pressing his mouth to the point of Piandao’s collarbone. </p><p>“God, I love you,” Piandao exhales.</p><p>“Love <em> you,” </em> Jeong Jeong mumbles, his breaths already evening out. He’s always been able to fall asleep just like that, while more often than not Piandao ends up laying awake for hours trying to get his brain to shut down. </p><p>He isn’t panicking anymore, not like earlier, but still he can’t help but run through scenarios in his head; what to say to Zuko, played out in every possible situation he can think of. He shouldn’t be thinking like this before he’s entirely sure that his suspicions are correct, but the similarities between Zuko and Sokka are just too striking.</p><p>In some ways they remind him, like an echo of a memory, of him and Jeong Jeong. He can barely account for the amount of shit they’ve gotten into over the years, Jeong Jeong dragging him out of bed or away from his books to drive three hours to stargaze or sneak into the steam tunnels under the engineering building or something equally as crazy.</p><p>They’ll be good for each other, he thinks. Zuko to push, Sokka to balance. It’s a good match, and maybe he can help them see it.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Piandao spends half of the next day dashing back and forth between the Hexagon and the regular building on his breaks to carry over the rest of the samples he’d abandoned last night, which has the bonus of preventing the odd moment in the kitchen from occupying too much of his attention. He thinks this forgives him for nearly jumping out of his skin when Jeong Jeong appears in the doorway halfway through his igneous lecture. </p><p><em> What are you doing here? </em> he thinks, a jolt of something very close to panic snapping through him. They don’t do this at work; they barely even take lunch together, and the door is always firmly open when it’s only the two of them in an office. It’s a combination of Jeong Jeong’s aversion to his coworkers knowing anything about him and the inherent awkward factor of your students knowing specifically who you’re married to - Piandao’s always said that he doesn’t mind either way, and he’d meant it, or at least he thought he had. </p><p>Now, though, he finds himself throwing all his energy into keeping his face straight and offering his husband nothing more than a restrained nod when he drops a cup of coffee onto the podium and gives him a wink where the students can’t see. The cheeky expression fades the longer Piandao doesn’t respond, and curdles for the barest fraction of a second before slamming back into professionalism as he turns his back.</p><p>Jeong Jeong tosses some flippant remark to the class as he saunters out, but Piandao barely catches the words, too focused on trying to both keep the thread of his lecture and look closer for - ah, there. His fingers flickering out a nearly imperceptible rhythm against the pocket flap on his cargo pants, the stress tell that decades haven’t managed to shake. The studied nonchalance is just that - studied. Everything about this screams deliberation; the two coffees, the anxious hands, the look, even the timing, coming into the lecture that Zuko’s in, and how’d he even find that out? Piandao is sure he’s never mentioned which section Zuko takes. </p><p>There’s an odd sense of hurt starting to coil in the bottom of Piandao’s chest now, looking at the cup of coffee steaming innocuously away atop an old pad of sticky notes, and only by the grace of having given this lecture a million times does he manage to pick it back up without incident. Jeong Jeong had always been the one to say that they wouldn’t be public about their marriage, and Piandao has no idea what he means by this and no time to think about it.</p><p>He makes some excuse at the end of class, apologizes swiftly to his TA, and tries not to appear too much like he’s fleeing the room. There’s light shining from under Jeong Jeong’s office door, and he only hesitates a moment before knocking and pushing it slowly open. Inside, he isn’t even pretending to be working, mouth pinched tight like Piandao’s kept him waiting, and Piandao bristles without thinking too much about it. </p><p>“So,” he says, trying for casual and missing by a mile, “what was that about?” </p><p>“What was what about?” and, <em> really? </em> Fine, he can play this game, too.</p><p>“Earlier, in my class?” Jeong Jeong raises his eyebrows, taking a sip from the cup at the edge of his desk. He doesn’t even <em> like </em> coffee; not that it’s stopped him from breaking their coffeemaker and making Piandao show up to class uncaffeinated, twice.</p><p>“What? I brought you coffee, yes?” </p><p>“We don’t do that, do we?” he asks, pointedly, trying to encompass the whole irony of Jeong Jeong playing dumb here.</p><p>“Oh,” Jeong Jeong says, tone razor-thin. “I see.” And then he’s on his feet shutting the door to the office, and Piandao only has time to think that maybe he shouldn’t have said it like that before he’s back in his chair, posture perfect like the curve of a shield. “What’s this <em> we </em> don’t do that? <em> I </em> think that I’ve done it. What you want to do about it is clearly your problem, but don’t drag me into it.”</p><p>“Drag- what? You didn’t even mention that you were going to do <em> any </em>thing,” Piandao protests, but he’s met with a derisive scoff.</p><p>“Oh, sorry, I wasn’t aware I had to inform you of every thought I have. Would you also like to know about every conference I’ve applied to these days? No? Yeah, we’re all busy.” </p><p>“What? You haven’t applied to a conference since - look, can we talk about that later?” </p><p>“Sure, if you remember,” and okay if <em> that’s </em> how it’s going to be.</p><p>“Fine, I’ll write it down right now and then you know I’ll remember.” He yanks his agenda out of his bag and picks a pen off of Jeong Jeong’s desk, scribbling down <em> conferences?? </em> in the margin of today’s page and slapping it shut. He doesn’t really have to write it down; this one is something that he’s sure he’ll remember. He just needs to be petty for a second because Jeong Jeong isn’t making any sense and his chest hurts like there’s ice in it and he isn’t just going to sit here and let this happen. “Can we talk about what we’re supposed to be talking about now?”</p><p>“Sure, and that is what? As far as I see it, I’ve tried to do something <em> nice </em> for you and your undergrad, yes, god forbid, and you’re jumping down my throat over it. Is that it? ‘We don’t do that’? Don’t want to be seen with me?” Piandao stares at him. Opens his mouth. Closes it again. His next words come out as a low hiss, dangerously restrained, without him entirely intending them to be.</p><p>“I didn’t even want to keep us a secret in the first place. I <em> wanted </em> this, I never had a problem with telling people and if <em> you </em> changed your mind about it then I think I deserved to know about it somewhere not in front of twenty undergraduates the day after I found two of my students in a closet at two in the morning!” </p><p>“Oh, now it’s my problem?” Jeong Jeong snaps, throwing his hands up and glaring hotly at him. Piandao sits forward in his chair and glares right back. “I seem to recall that that was something that we agreed on, as in, both of us.”</p><p>“And that means that not doing it anymore isn’t a thing to be agreed on, by both of us?” </p><p>“You just said it, you wanted this the whole time, so why does it really, really feel like you don’t want it now?” He’s practically spitting the words, voice low and acidic. </p><p>“It’s not that I don’t want it, I just wanted you to <em> tell me!” </em> </p><p>“And it’s not that I didn’t want to tell you, it’s just that I thought that even if I didn’t you’d be <em> pleasantly fucking surprised!” </em></p><p>“That isn’t all of it, is it? You didn’t want to tell me because you thought I’d say no. You-” Piandao just barely bites down on the end of his sentence, but he knows the next words were about to be <em> You were scared I’d say no. </em>That has the benefit of probably being completely true, but also the thing, out of all things, that he’s sworn to himself he’ll never say again and he doesn’t know quite how he got there. Jeong Jeong stares at him, incredulous, and for a second he thinks he’s going to call him on it.</p><p>“Say no? You don’t control me.” Or - not.</p><p>“No, I don’t- how did you even get there?” </p><p>“How was I supposed to <em> not </em> get there?” God, this is a mess. </p><p>“Look,” Piandao says, trying to take a moment to breathe even with the weight of Jeong Jeong’s gaze, which is apparently trying to burn a hole right through him to the door beyond. “I don’t mind if you want to do this. Actually,” and the irritation festers in his tone even as he tries to push it back, “I’d rather do it. And the coffee was nice. I just <em> wish </em> you’d said something.”</p><p>That, apparently, didn’t do the trick. Jeong Jeong’s posture straightens even more, the lines at the corners of his eyes pinching tight, and he points a single finger in Piandao’s direction. He can’t help but notice that it’s trembling, just the tiniest bit.</p><p>“So then why,” Jeong Jeong says, each word sharp like he’s biting down onto it, “won’t you just acknowledge that it was a hard fucking thing for me to do and get over not knowing about it beforehand? Not everything can be planned for, no matter how much you want it to be.” </p><p>A strange look passes over his face then, like he’s realizing he’s said too much, and he sits back in his chair and glances nervously at the clock. Piandao just blinks, something catching in his throat, feeling more than a little shell-shocked. He’s almost crossed one of their lines, one of Jeong Jeong’s lines really, and there’s guilt in the way he’s separating them.</p><p><em> You were scared. You were scared you were scared you were scared. </em> It loops over and over in his head, the words he’d barely held back, and it’s been ten years but he doesn’t think he’ll ever forget the way Jeong Jeong had flinched the first time he’d heard that word from Piandao’s mouth. He hadn’t understood at first, how <em> scared </em> was just a touch too close to <em> coward, </em> to <em> weak, </em> to <em> runaway. </em>Hadn’t thought that anyone would dare say those things to a man who’d nearly just died, who’d just seen friends die. He’d sworn when he’d found out, breathless with his heart in his throat, over and over to himself as much as to Jeong Jeong that he’d never say it again. </p><p>“Don’t you have office hours? Zuko will need to talk to you,” Jeong Jeong says abruptly, voice eerily even. Piandao glances at the time and bites back a curse.</p><p>“Yeah, I-” he pauses, searching for words he knows won’t come. He knows already that this isn’t something he can solve with a sentence.</p><p>“Just go. Leave the door open.”</p><p>He does.</p><p>He has just enough time to gather himself and attempt to shove aside all thoughts of the argument before Zuko is tapping tentatively at his door. He thinks he does an admirable job of holding it together all the way up to when Zuko compares him to his uncle. He knows exactly how much Iroh means to Zuko and vice versa - although anyone who talks to either of them for more than a minute does. To think that he might occupy even a fraction of that space in Zuko’s heart is worth more than any paper he’s ever published, and it’s by grace of something beyond him that he doesn’t cry then and there.</p><p>And then Zuko, brilliant, compassionate Zuko, who’s all heart behind the sarcasm and the awkward, surprises him again.</p><p>He <em> comes out to him, </em> and he looks scared out of his wits the entire time, and Piandao can barely stand seeing that look on his face. The relief he feels when Zuko nearly collapses into him tingles all the way down to his toes, and he thinks he’s crying too when he folds him into his arms and holds on as tightly as he can.</p><p>As Zuko sniffles into his shirt, taking hitching breaths like he can’t quite recall how, he finds himself seething, all at once, with an shattering sort of anger that he hasn’t felt in a very long time. He knows some inklings of Zuko’s home life before his uncle took him in, and Iroh rarely speaks about the circumstances surrounding the angry scar on Zuko’s face, and never about his brother. It isn’t his place to ask, but he knows enough to put some pieces together and his suspicions about Zuko’s father make him want to actually use his swords on another human being and he doesn’t even feel remorse at the thought.</p><p>But that isn’t the point. He doesn’t know any of this for sure. And right now Zuko is shaking - in sheer relief, most likely - and he can’t make his past right but he can hold him now, and thank the universe that he can be here for this boy right when it seems he needs it most.</p><p>He hopes Jeong Jeong will forgive him for telling the story about the Hexagon, even though the identity of the person who accidentally almost arsoned the new lab building is technically still unknown. Anyway, he’s mad at him already - how much worse can it get? </p><p>Maybe that isn’t a good question to ask. He just won’t tell him. Yet.</p><p>It has Zuko laughing by the end, anyway, and spilling more thoughts about his thesis, and he makes a note to get him those lab keys even if he has to push the paperwork all the way up the chain himself. He’s pretty sure that one day he’s going to be a better scientist than most of the people in the department today, and resolves to tell him that until he believes it.</p><p>About ten minutes later he finds himself revising that opinion. Zuko’s definitely going to be a better <em> scientist </em> than any of them, but whether he’s ever going to see the things directly in front of his eyes is highly debatable. Never mind the fact that he’d almost felt the temperature of the room drop when Jeong Jeong had appeared in the doorway. </p><p>Contrary to what people might believe - if they knew - they don’t fight. Not like that. It’s just bickering over the cooking and the papers on the table and the times they’re in the lab and everything else in between but that’s familiar, that’s easy, that’s just what they do and Piandao would give up anything to keep it. It isn’t for anyone else to understand. But here he is, looking at his own husband with a chill in his veins, caught between the apology he wishes would solve everything and a creeping sort of self-righteous anger coating the back of his throat. </p><p>“Lemme grab these papers and then we can go,” he says tentatively, turning around to dig in his filing cabinets for lab access forms so he doesn’t need to look him in the eye any longer. He doesn’t get a response. When he comes up with a manila folder labelled with only “lab forms” and sets it down on the desk to flip through, he feels the weight of his eyes on him like a brand the whole time.</p><p>Jeong Jeong pushes back out the door the minute that Piandao unearths the right form, leaving him to juggle his bag, the paper, and his jacket all at once. He gets the door open before it closes in his face, but just barely. </p><p>They still haven’t exchanged words by the time they reach the door onto the street, and Piandao hesitates at the foot of the stairs. If they do happen to walk out together they usually go in different directions, just to throw any curious glances off the scent. He just doesn’t know where they stand now, with everything, but Jeong Jeong is holding the door open for him and it feels like a challenge.</p><p>He walks through, and hates himself a little bit for it. It feels like he should be angry. Feels like he should be incandescent with it, because all that and Jeong Jeong couldn’t even be bothered to ask if <em> he </em> was okay with walking home together. It’s cold, though, enough to bite through the thick wool of his coat, and he’s just tired. Tired of fighting, tired of hiding, and he wants it all to stop but that’s like hitting the brakes on a train that’s already run off the tracks. </p><p>He’s struck by the inexplicable urge to laugh, looking at the good foot of space between them and Jeong Jeong walking like he’s daring someone to step in his way, forcing Piandao to hurry to catch up. No one’s going to think anything if they see them like this.</p><p>It’s his turn to cook tonight, and he flees to the kitchen as soon as he can make it seem natural. It’s too easy to lose himself in the repetitive cycle of washing-chopping-stirring, and it feels like no time at all before he’s set the timer on the pressure cooker and left himself staring down a skillet full of tofu like it might tell him how to fix this.</p><p>Jeong Jeong’s sitting at the table by the time he gets the couscous out of the pot, spooning it into little bowls and plating the tofu as a side. He barely looks up from the paper he’s grading when Piandao sets the plates down, sounding distracted and bitter as he mumbles a <em> thank you </em> that leaves Piandao standing in the middle of the kitchen taking a couple deep breaths before he can stack the pots into the sink and take his own dishes over without screaming. </p><p>He keeps darting little glances over at Jeong Jeong as he eats, as if between one moment and the next he’ll stop radiating vitriol like it’s his damn job. </p><p>“What are you looking at?” comes the irritated grumble, and he just barely restrains a sigh.</p><p>“Nothing.” Jeong Jeong’s eyes linger for another second, narrowed suspiciously, and then he exhales sharply and returns his attention to his plate. A few minutes later he tucks his pen behind his ear and gets up, ignoring Piandao’s empty plate. Piandao sits as still as he can, listening to the rush of the sink faucet, and seethes. It’s like he always has to be the bigger person; first to apologize, last to snap, and it’s probably his own fault in the end but he’s still choking under the urge to snap that it isn’t that hard to not subject him to the silent treatment.</p><p>He waits until the water shuts off to pick up his own plate, and comes face to face with Jeong Jeong in the process. They stare at each other, frozen, and there’s something raw and hurt in the lines of his face despite how hard he’s clearly trying to wipe it blank.</p><p>Piandao is just opening his mouth when Jeong Jeong looks away, muttering something that could be an apology if run through a translator, and picks his bag up from where he’d dumped it onto the couch.</p><p>“I’ll be home late,” he says, no inflection to his tone. “Don’t wait up.”</p><p>“Fine,” Piandao’s voice doesn’t sound like his own at all. “Be safe.” He nods, and then he’s gone, the front door shutting heavily behind him. Not quite a slam, but close enough. </p><p>Piandao looks at it for a while, biting down on the inside of his lip until it stings. The whole argument feels like nothing much more than a blur of bitter words and raised voices now that he’s out of the crushing tension of that office, leaving him with the uncomfortable sensation of deja vu. His clearest memory is of <em> oh, I see, </em> the cut-glass syllables accented with the little click of the door closing, and it all feels terribly removed from eating dumplings in the middle of this very kitchen less than twenty-four hours ago. He wants suddenly, desperately, to go back there. Wants to press the reset button on this entire day and see if he can do it right the second time around. </p><p>He knows, though, better than most maybe, that life doesn’t work like that. If he’d had that button to press he would’ve done it years ago.</p><p>“What if I did?” he asks the empty air. “What if I did wait up, what would you do about it?” </p><p>The house doesn’t answer. He doubts Jeong Jeong would’ve, either.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but he wakes to an empty bed and a cold room. It hits him then, like a fist to his gut, how much he’d thought this might blow over on its own, and all he wants to do is curl up under the covers and pretend that everything is okay.</p><p>It’s only the knowledge that he teaches three classes today and will never catch back up to the syllabus if he skips that gets him out of bed, and it takes two mugs of coffee before he feels anywhere close to functional. He misses the bus, though, and is nearly late to morning petrology because he hadn’t been walking fast enough. His TA gives him a weird look when he dashes in, but it’s just a lecture section today and he doesn’t give her the chance to corner him and ask him if he’s alright. He isn’t sure what he would’ve said, if she had.</p><p>Work feels unaccountably lonely when he knows he’s going home to an empty house. Barring some miracle, there won’t be a second pair of boots on the mat tonight. No jacket strewn across the furniture because he never remembers that they have coat hooks, no tea bags for Piandao to scold him for putting in the garbage instead of the compost. He keeps finding himself filing things away to tell him later, and being reminded every single time that they’re not speaking. </p><p>He stalls in the office, hunched over his desk with an old ballpoint pen filling out his backlog of paperwork as darkness creeps across the windows, until the choice comes down to tackling the years-old piles of file folders behind his desk or facing the house. Once he’s there, though, in the emptiness with every noise echoing like he’s in some cold high-ceilinged mansion instead of their little Spanish-style, he thinks that maybe the folders would’ve been kinder. Better, at least, than being left alone with his thoughts. </p><p>Unbidden, he finds his mind drifting back to the night they’d spent in the labs, the little pocket of time they’d carved out of the middle of midterms. He’d never said anything afterwards, about what he’d been thinking as he watched Jeong Jeong work, but he knows deep down that it hadn’t been the first time he’s resented the hiding. </p><p>And yet, he’s never said anything about it. Not to any of their friends, and certainly not to Jeong Jeong, because...what? Because he didn’t want to risk him saying no? Great good that’s done them now.</p><p>Because he hates change. He knows that’s the answer as soon as he thinks it. It’s why he makes the same three recipes every other night, it’s why every office he’s ever had is arranged in the same way, and it’s probably why he’s only really ever had three friends. It’s why moving a thousand miles for grad school was the hardest decision he’s ever made. It’s so much easier if everything just stays the same and he doesn’t like to admit fear but it’s staring him right in the face. </p><p>He’s as scared of going public as Jeong Jeong is. </p><p>“Okay,” he says abruptly, and the spatula jumps out of his hand and clatters against the side of the pot, sounding terribly out of place over the white noise of the range hood. <em>Alright. That’s enough thinking for right now. </em> </p><p>But the thoughts stick, a burr in the back of his head as he collects himself; even when he turns on music to try and drown it out he catches the creeping dread in his stomach anyway. Maybe Jeong Jeong was right, or at least justified, saying what he had. Has he been doing this, all these years? Pushing back - so subtly, maybe, that even he hadn’t realized it - against this? </p><p>Maybe this hurt has been festering in both of them, too quiet to notice but all the more insidious for it. It surely explains this fight, how defensive Jeong Jeong had seemed - but Piandao had been the one to start it. </p><p>Guilt sweeps over him, sudden as a lightning strike. Why couldn’t he just have accepted it? Accepted the coffee and winked back and maybe flashed his wedding ring and that would’ve been the end of it, but no. He’d just had to make an ass out of himself, and now it’s been the longest time they’ve gone without speaking since they’ve been married and everything feels brittle, like the life he’s built himself might come collapsing down around his ears if he takes one more wrong step. </p><p>There’s another clatter, and Piandao looks down to find he’s dropped the spatula again. His hand brushes against the hot side of the pot as he reaches to pick it up, but he barely feels the pain. Everything feels slow, clumsy like he’s wading through some sort of haze, thoughts fogged like a window on a cold day. Maybe this isn’t something he can fix. </p><p>It has to be something he can fix. It’s just a fight. Couples fight all the time, he tells himself as he bandages his burnt fingers. It isn’t exactly like he’s going out of his way to find Jeong Jeong, either. These things take time, and just because he’s uncomfortably dependent on his husband’s presence doesn’t mean that Jeong Jeong’s about to file for divorce after one day spent angry.</p><p>It still feels wrong, eating his sad bowl of buckwheat noodles and trying not to spill soup on a student’s lab notebook. He’s never professed to be the first to confront a tough conversation, but he’s pretty sure Jeong Jeong’s sleeping in the lab which is just a whole other level of avoidance. For a given value of ‘sleeping,’ probably; the one time they’d seen each other in the hallways Jeong Jeong had looked just as bad as Piandao felt. </p><p>He doesn’t know if he’s more worried about him, or annoyed about the way he’s clearly pretending Piandao doesn’t exist. </p><p>Piandao had made tea in the morning, in the blind hope that he’d come home sometime and find it, and drinking the reheated Earl Grey tastes like disappointment. He leaves the cup half-finished on the counter.</p><p>His phone rings then, chirping shrilly from the bottom of his bag, and he groans and drops the tea bag into the compost to dig for it. When he sees Mei’s caller ID on the screen he nearly hangs up on her; he just feels so wrung-out that he doesn’t think he’ll be very good company. But they haven’t talked in more than a month and a half, what with her away on a research trip and him being, well, busy and forgetful and prone to using that exact excuse whenever he thinks of initiating the call. It’s fortunate that Lee is good enough at keeping in touch with people because she doesn’t deserve two absent best friends, not when she spends most of her time in far-flung places anyway. He sighs and hits accept.</p><p>“Hello?”</p><p>“Hey, Piandao.” God, he’s missed her voice. All at once he doesn’t know how he could’ve even thought of hanging up. </p><p>“Mei, how are you? How’s the ice?”</p><p>“Cold, thanks,” she says dryly. “Also, melting, which, you know. We don’t even need the icebreakers now.”</p><p>“It’s that bad.” </p><p>“Yeah. It’s either the best or the worst time to be on sabbatical - I get to do this, but also I have to see it.” </p><p>“You’re showing us pictures when you get back, yeah? For the rest of us stuck in the lab all the time.” She laughs, and he imagines the way she’d be pointing at him if they were in the same room.</p><p>“I’ll do you one better, I’ll give a talk if you want.” He grins.</p><p>“We wouldn’t be able to turn you away, miss soon to be department head, if I hear correctly.” The line goes silent for a long moment, and he’s about to ask if the connection’s dropped when she lets out an incredulous huff. </p><p>“How did you hear about that? You’re on the other side of the world! I haven’t told a soul yet.” </p><p>“Well, when you’re friends with the wife of the current head, and show up to her house parties, it’s very easy to overhear some phone calls,” he answers. “Be friends with people, Mei, it’ll make your life so much easier.”</p><p>“Shut up, Piandao. God, I can’t believe this. Can’t believe Yangchen ratted me out like that. Now I have to take it.”</p><p>“Like you didn’t say yes the minute they offered?” </p><p>“Piandao...” But she’s laughing, and he can’t help but laugh along, feeling lighter than he has in days.</p><p>“Fine, fine, I’ll stop. You’re just too much fun to mess with. I’m proud of you, you know. I really am.”</p><p>“God, why am I still friends with you?” A pause. “Thanks, though. I’m really...I really hope I can live up to them.”</p><p>“Of course you will. They wouldn’t have offered you the position if they didn’t think you could do it.” All these years, and she still doubts herself like that. The fear of academic failure can never really leave you if you never leave academia, apparently. “And yeah, I’ll ask about that lecture, we’d love for you to do that.”</p><p>“Yeah, just let me know what they say and we’ll set something up. Hey, is Jeong Jeong there, or is he avoiding the phone like usual?” His heart drops abruptly, all the levity of a second earlier whisking away into the still air in the house, and he glances involuntarily at the door. <em> Well, </em> he imagines saying, <em> he’s being a cagey ass and I nearly called him a coward, so, pretty sure he isn’t here. </em> Apparently, he’s quiet for a bit too long, because then she’s saying something again.</p><p>“Are you fighting?” He can nearly hear the enigmatic smile through the phone. Of course she knows. </p><p>“How’d you know?” he asks anyway.</p><p>“‘Cause you never miss an opportunity to talk about something he’s said or done because you two are still disgustingly in love after this many fuckin’ decades,” she says, and has the audacity to sound smug about it. “Come on, what happened?”</p><p>He sighs and rubs his hand over his face, leaning back into the armchair cushions and pressing the phone between his cheek and the fabric.</p><p>“That bad, huh?” </p><p>“I mean...sort of, yeah.” And then he finds the whole thing pouring out of him in a rush, from finding Zuko and Sokka in the closet to the dumplings to their fight and what he’d almost said as she makes comforting noises in the background. </p><p>“I just keep thinking I should be more mad than I am but I’m just <em> tired, </em> Mei, I just want to stop doing this and if I hadn’t blown up at him about it maybe it would’ve been alright? He just had to do it like that and then have the audacity to make it my problem and I don’t even know how it got there.” He says the last of it in one long breath and then flops back into the chair, having shifted to perch straight up on the edge at some point in his indignation. Somehow, he still can’t bring himself to admit that it’s his fault, too. </p><p>“What kind of dumplings?” she asks, apropos of nothing, and he huffs a laugh, a pang of missing her stabbing at his chest. They’re well overdue for a visit - Lee, too, and maybe he can convince him to come down and they can throw her a welcome-home party when her sabbatical is over.</p><p>“Of course you’d ask that. Still your mom’s recipe, even though I have to say I’ve lied to mine that it was hers.” </p><p>“As is your right.” She’s quiet for the space of a few breaths. “Piandao, look - I wish Jeong Jeong were here too so I could tell both of you this because you’re just <em> not communicating. </em> Yes, you too, and you’re both too stubborn for your own good and that’s why you’re here.”</p><p>“I didn’t say anything,” he protests.</p><p>“You didn’t have to. Anyway, yeah, he does things on impulse so he doesn’t get that that’s what you’re pissed off about-”</p><p>“No, I get that,” Piandao interrupts, but Mei shushes him, sounding annoyed for the first time in the conversation.</p><p>“You <em> don’t, </em> though. I think what you - what you’re not seeing is that he thought you not reacting...meant that you didn’t want to be public or whatever. So - you seeing what I’m saying? He doesn’t believe you when you say that you want it because he thinks that he saw the opposite.”</p><p>Piandao feels sick. His stupid subconscious reaction did that, and the worst part is, it’s sort of true. Apparently. He wants to hold Jeong Jeong’s hand in public so badly it hurts, but in the same breath he can’t help but think about everything that might change. </p><p>He should ask Mei, while he has her here, but when he opens his mouth to do it the words stick in his throat. She’s given him enough advice tonight already. </p><p>He knows it’s an excuse. Doesn’t care. Or, at least, he pretends he doesn’t.</p><p>“How do you <em> know these things?” </em> he complains instead, glaring at the phone.</p><p>“I don’t know things, Piandao,” she says, warm and kind and quiet. “You of all people know that - but I just know you. I know you’re not telling me something, too.” She pauses just long enough for the bottom to drop out of Piandao’s stomach, waiting for her to ask. “I think you just need to talk, and I do mean talk, not shout at each other again. I want you to have this, yeah? I never thought Jeong Jeong would, you know, not after, so don’t fuck it up. Tell him I said that, too, when you’re speaking again.”</p><p>“But what about what I was gonna say-” <em> and what I did? </em></p><p>“Listen to yourself. You didn’t say it, because you know what it means, right? You were mad - and you’re only human. The problem with love is that you know exactly where to hit to make them hurt. But you didn’t say it, and that’s love too. It’s going to be okay, Piandao.” The guilt still lingers, but something loosens in his chest for the first time today. “He’s just gonna be an asshole about it for a while because that’s how he is.” </p><p>“Mei-” She snorts out a little laugh.</p><p>“I’m right and you know it. Now, let me tell you about the ice shelf. Preview for that talk.” He smiles, and readjusts the phone against his ear.</p><p>“I’m listening.” </p><p>He sleeps badly again that night, despite how much better he’d felt on the phone. He’s greeted by the same empty bed and cold sheets again in the morning, and braces for another day of this horrible limbo. It takes him aback, then, when Jeong Jeong’s name shows up on his office hour appointments. Zuko doesn’t come in on Fridays, and no one else wants to show up to office hours then - he isn’t really sure why the timeslot is still on his schedule, besides that he just has the time. </p><p>He wonders if he’s here to apologize, and just as quickly dismisses the thought. It isn’t going to be that easy. </p><p><em> So then, what is he here for? </em> a little voice whispers in the back of his head. </p><p>“Shut up,” he tells himself and his empty office. It doesn’t matter what he’s here for; he’s going to be here and that’s better than it’s been in days.</p><p>He throws himself into his lectures all day, trying not to give himself a single minute to think. It takes seeing Zuko in class for him to remember that he’s set him and Sokka up at the studio <em> tonight, </em> and two entire days have really passed since that incident with the closet. It feels simultaneously like forever ago and like it’s just happened.</p><p>Whether he’ll still even have a ride home, or if he’ll be stuck walking, remains to be seen, but either way he hopes dearly that the boys can figure things out. Maybe one thing he does this week can work.</p><p>In his distraction it seems as though he’s set his calendar alert wrong, because it’s barely chimed when his door clicks open and his husband sweeps in. He sets down a ceramic cup of coffee on Piandao’s desk with a soft clink, and then folds himself into the chair. From this close, he looks even worse than Piandao had thought - bags under his eyes deep enough to drown in, shoulders slumped as if he can’t hold himself up.</p><p><em> Stupid, dramatic man, </em> he thinks, and a different kind of annoyance clenches hot at his chest. It’s just like him to do this, eat himself up with his own stubbornness because he doesn’t want to talk. </p><p><em> You’ve not exactly been communicative, </em> whispers a voice that sounds suspiciously like Mei. He banishes it with no small pang of guilt.</p><p>Abruptly, he notices that he’s been sitting here thinking for a good while and Jeong Jeong hasn’t said a thing, just sat and stared like he’s expecting Piandao to make the first move.  </p><p>“Um,” he says, resisting the urge to sigh because it’s <em> always like this </em> and then wondering where in the world that thought had came from, “how are you?” </p><p>“Seriously?” Jeong Jeong deadpans, voice bone dry. “Small talk?” </p><p>“What else am I meant to say? I haven’t seen you in two days.” </p><p>“You’ve not seen me for longer.” </p><p>“That isn’t the-” He stops, realizing he’s dangerously close to shouting, and god this already isn’t going well. Jeong Jeong is still regarding him impassively across the desk. “That isn’t the point,” he continues as levelly as he can. </p><p>“Then what is?” Piandao briefly contemplates the merits of throwing something at him. These days all his obstinate impertinence is usually directed towards either university leadership or one peer reviewer or the other, and he’s nearly forgotten how it feels directed at him. </p><p>“Seriously, what do you want me to say? Why are you here?” <em> If you didn’t want to talk, </em> he finishes in his head. Jeong Jeong’s eyes slide shut.</p><p>“I don’t know.” He pushes the chair back and gets up, staring down at the untouched coffee cup for a second. “I’ll just go.”</p><p>It’d be so easy to just let him. Too easy. </p><p>A memory steals into Piandao’s head, coming together in waves like some great creature breaching the surface, and when it coalesces it’s like a gut punch. </p><p><em> I think, </em> says a Jeong Jeong he used to know, brown hair and thrifted sweater vest, a forkful of takeout fettucini in his hand, <em> that maybe this isn’t going to work. </em> Tentative, like he never was. Like Piandao might be glass, or dust; one word to shatter the illusion.</p><p>The shiver that steals down his spine has nothing to do with the room temperature. It’s not like that anymore, it’s not. It’s not going to be like that, it’s just a fight, he can handle this. They can handle this. </p><p>
  <em> I think that maybe this isn’t going to work. </em>
</p><p>Can they?</p><p>“Don’t-” he says, and his voice sounds broken even to his own ears, and he sees Jeong Jeong notice in the way he stiffens, back straight like the edge of a knife. He doesn’t turn around.</p><p>The illusion again, fuzzing in and out of focus. <em> I’m sorry. I think...it’d be good if I went. Somewhere else. For tonight.  </em></p><p>“Don’t go. Please.” The words are ash in Piandao’s mouth, hanging in the air between them, a thread stretched too taut to hold. </p><p>He doesn’t breathe. Pushes the other chair a little further out from the desk.</p><p>“Fine.” Jeong Jeong lets go of the doorknob, stalking over to slump into the chair. Piandao exhales, thin and shaky, and picks up the coffee cup, hiding his face in a sip to give himself a moment to collect his nerves. </p><p>And several things happen all at once. Maybe he’s just shifting in the chair, maybe it’s on purpose, but suddenly one of the piles of papers on the corner of the desk is airborne and something is shattering across the floor and over all of it is Jeong Jeong’s voice, dry and sardonic and flippant asking “So? Why shouldn’t I go?” Like he doesn’t know, or worse, doesn’t care that Piandao hasn’t slept right in days, that he sits up late listening for the click of the front door opening, that there’s three cups of cold tea on the counter at home because he can’t drink them but he can’t stop making them. Like none of it matters at all.</p><p>“What is your problem?” and then he’s out of his chair shouting, and the rest of the papers haven’t even hit the ground yet, and all he has to latch onto is that those are going to be a bitch to clean up. “I don’t <em> know, </em> I don’t know what you’re thinking, I don’t know why you’re doing this. I just know that you’re being <em> fucking ridiculous </em> and - and you don’t even know what you’re doing. You don’t even know what you want.”</p><p>“No,” Jeong Jeong yells right back, shoving his chair back, “I think it’s you that doesn’t know what you want. I’ve made everything completely clear and it’s <em> you </em> - it’s <em> always you, </em> it doesn’t matter if I say anything, if I try and ‘tell you in advance’ or whatever.”</p><p>“Of course it matters, I didn't think I had to <em> ask </em> for common courtesy-”</p><p>“Would you have done anything differently if I’d given it to you? The answer is no. You wouldn’t have. Why do you think I’ve never brought it up? ‘Cause you kept giving me these fucking <em> signs </em> and you probably didn’t even notice you were doing it, did you?”</p><p>“I didn’t notice <em> what? </em> I haven’t done anything to you-” but he has. He has. </p><p>Jeong Jeong is <em> right. </em> He’s been pushing back on it, this fight’s been years in the making - mea-fucking-culpa, not realizing his own fears until too late, never taking a moment to think about <em> why </em> he’d let this hiding thing go on for so long, even though it’d grated at him more and more as time passed. </p><p>Jeong Jeong is right, and this is just one more piece of it, one more feeble dying fight of Piandao’s own fears and he’s gotten both of them caught in the crossfire. </p><p>
  <em> I think that maybe this isn’t going to work. </em>
</p><p>His hands are shaking suddenly, a pit of dread pooling in his stomach. This has nothing in common with that. </p><p>Except his heart. Except for the fact that he knows, as well as he’d had at twenty-two, that if Jeong Jeong leaves he will break. He can’t lose him again, surely the world wouldn’t be that cruel, to take him away for the third time - but it isn’t the world, is it? There’s no fate here, just him and his mistakes. Just fucking - peer review, and he bites back a choking laugh at his own joke and feels like he’s losing his mind a little bit. </p><p><em> You need to talk, and not just shout at each other again. </em> And what is he doing? Just that. </p><p>He isn’t going to let it happen. This isn’t going to end. Not this time. Not even if he has to take back everything he’d said, not even if he has to admit every word he’s not-quite-said, not even anything. It doesn’t matter if he’s right or wrong, it doesn’t matter if either of them are. They’re tearing themselves apart, and it’s not worth it. None of it is worth it, not this fight, not his point, not a thing in the world. Not when it’s just a misunderstanding. Nothing is worth losing him. </p><p> “You’re right,” he says, and it drops into the room like a boulder. He sits heavily back into his chair. It feels like he has glass in his chest, burning through his ribs, rising up and choking his throat. Jeong Jeong’s face might as well be carved out of marble, or maybe ice, if only for its coldness. “You’re right. I didn’t notice. Not until now.”</p><p>“No. You didn’t.” Jeong Jeong is still standing, and Piandao doesn’t believe in gods but he’s praying now. If he walks out that door he might not come back.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he says quietly, and to his own shock he feels tears pricking his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize. I’ve-”</p><p>He pauses, squeezing his eyes shut. He can be brave enough to say this, but not quite enough to look him in the eye while he does it. </p><p>Jeong Jeong was always the brave one. Always. </p><p>“I’ve been scared. Okay? All these years. I just didn’t know what would happen, and I kept using you not wanting to talk about it as an excuse, and that wasn’t fair to you and I’m sorry.” The words feel clumsy and awkward, the pauses between the sentences too long, and he clenches his hands together to stop them from shaking him apart. “I understand if you have to go - if you can’t-”</p><p>He can’t even say it. Can’t speak it into existence, in case it comes true.</p><p>“What do you want?” Jeong Jeong asks. </p><p>“I’m sor-what?” He looks up at him, confused.</p><p>“What do you want?” It’s not an accusation, but somehow it still feels like one - but Piandao knows how to answer this one. It’s the only truth he knows, the only star he’ll follow.</p><p>“You. However you want. It scares me but...I can’t lose you. It’s your call to make.” Jeong Jeong blinks once, then twice, mouth frozen just a little bit open. </p><p>“Piandao,” he says, and he sounds wrecked too, and Piandao’s stomach swoops dangerously. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not leaving you. I - fuck.” He sits suddenly, heavily, like his strings have all been cut at once. “Did you really think…?”</p><p>“A little,” Piandao admits, looking away as he feels tears pressing into his eyes again. “Look, I don’t care what you want to do, I’ll do it with you.”</p><p>“Piandao, stop. Please.” </p><p>He stops. </p><p>Jeong Jeong just looks at him for a moment, expression unreadable, and then he pushes himself out of his chair and comes around to Piandao’s side of the desk.</p><p>“What are you-” Piandao starts, and then he’s hugging him, too tightly but Piandao doesn’t care, wants to climb inside him and stay there forever, and then he’s really crying, hitching sobs into his shoulder and he can feel Jeong Jeong shaking against him too and it’s all a mess, they’re a mess but they’re a mess together and he’d take this over that crushing sort of loneliness any day.</p><p>“I’ve been mad at you,” Jeong Jeong says eventually, letting out a little laugh, but it has no humour in it. “I’ve been fucking furious, and I sort of still am, but I’m not leaving.”</p><p>“I know,” Piandao says wretchedly. “I’ve just been paranoid and haven’t slept and-”</p><p>“Of course you haven’t,” Jeong Jeong grits out, and he sounds angry again and Piandao can’t hold back another choked-off sob. He’s just never going to stop screwing up, is he. “I should know better by now, I thought about coming home last night but-”</p><p>But it’s guilt in his tone, under the razor edges, and when Piandao chances a look up it’s written all over his face, there and in the softness of his touch as he lifts a hand to brush the tears from his cheeks. </p><p>“I should’ve, I think.” </p><p>“No, you shouldn’t have,” Piandao says, voice hoarse, and he thinks the words surprise both of them. “It wouldn’t have gone well.”</p><p>“Like this went well?” He exhales wryly, shaking his head. </p><p>“No, like worse. It took me a while to work through all of this. Turns out I don’t know myself as well as I thought.”</p><p>“No one really knows themselves, I think. I’ve been thinking, too-”</p><p>“Don’t hurt yourself.” The quip is instinctive, and Piandao freezes as soon as it leaves his mouth - not the time. But Jeong Jeong snorts, tapping him lightly on the back of the head.</p><p>“Hey, I’m trying to have a serious moment here. I...should’ve told you. What I was planning to do, I mean. I was gonna, after the closet thing, but you were already a mess and I didn’t want to do it then and then I just forgot. So...you were right about that, I guess. It just felt like you were saying no - to ever going public at all.”</p><p>“I know, I know what it sounded like and - again. I was, god, terrified of it and I didn’t even realize.” </p><p>“I get it. There’s a reason I haven’t brought it up either, you know.” Piandao wipes at his eyes with the sleeve of his sweater, feeling approximately two feet tall, and he notices for the first time Jeong Jeong rubbing little circles into his shoulders. </p><p>“We’ve been stupid, haven’t we?” he says, tucking his forehead against Jeong Jeong’s chest again. </p><p>“I’d think so. To be clear here - no one is going anywhere. Our friends would kill us, for one-”</p><p>And Piandao laughs, muffled in the fabric of his flannel, and it still sounds a little closer to a sob but it’s better than the terrible cracking of a fear he’d never expected to feel again. He’s starting to remember how to breathe.</p><p>“Mei would come home early just to kick our asses. And...let’s not tell Lee. Like at all.”</p><p>“Mei knows, doesn’t she?” Jeong Jeong asks, and Piandao nods. “It’ll go to her head someday, I swear.” </p><p>He pauses, and Piandao looks up just to watch the line of his throat shift as he swallows. </p><p><em> “Are </em> you okay with it? Telling people. It’s alright if you aren’t-”</p><p>“No,” Piandao interrupts. “I want to. I think I’ve always wanted to, even though...it freaks me out a little...yeah, sorry, it doesn’t make sense. Anyway - if you can be in a place where you can do it, I’m not letting whatever is going on in my head get in the way.”</p><p>Jeong Jeong lets go of him then, pushing back to regard him at arm’s length. </p><p>“No, I mean, are <em> you </em>okay with it? I’m here, but that has nothing to do with where you are.” </p><p>“You’re so wise now. When did that happen? And - yes. I’m okay with it.”</p><p>“See? That wasn’t so hard.” <em> Smug bastard. </em> </p><p>“Sure, if you want to think about it that way.” Jeong Jeong offers him a grin, tiny and tentative, and he grins back. His eyes still hurt from crying, and he suspects the exhaustion will hit soon, but given where they’d started he thinks this is the best way it could’ve turned out. </p><p>He takes a glance at the clock, wondering how long they’ve been here, and then lets out a startled noise and hops up out of his chair. “I gotta...the studio. It’s Friday, and I’ve set Sokka and Zuko up to close up together because I literally can’t think of anything else that’s going to work.”</p><p>“You’ll leave early and I’ll come pick you up,” Jeong Jeong says, stepping back to let him out from behind the desk, and it isn’t a question. Piandao blinks a couple times.</p><p>“I thought-” he starts, taken aback. </p><p>“You think I’m leaving you to walk home in this cold?” As if emphasizing his point, he gets up and picks Piandao’s coat off the rack, holding it out so he can put it on and stepping in close to pat the lapels down. He jumps a little when Piandao’s arms fold around him, but quickly sags into the hug, tipping his forehead against Piandao’s shoulder. The door is still open, but Piandao figures he won’t mind much. </p><p>“Missed you,” he says, half under his breath. Jeong Jeong doesn’t reply, but he presses a little closer, warm even through Piandao’s layers of clothes. </p><p>“C’mon. You’ll be late,” he says eventually, pulling away and picking up his bag from the floor. “Wouldn’t do to ruin your master plan.” </p><p>“It wouldn’t.” <em> It’d be worth it, though. For this - for you. </em> “I’ll see you soon.”</p><p>“Good luck with the idiots.” Piandao grins, and doesn’t bother to correct him.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>“Hey,” Jeong Jeong says on Sunday night, pushing his laptop shut and plugging it in on his side of the bed. Piandao types a couple last words and hits send on the email he’s working on, looking over questioningly.</p><p>“What’s up?” </p><p>“Tomorrow’s Monday, yeah?” </p><p>“I mean, I think so?” He glances at the date in the corner of the screen, just to check. “Yeah, Monday. No, I don’t want to go back to work. Think we could just stay here?” Jeong Jeong snorts, hooking their fingers together and squeezing. </p><p>“Well, I was thinking…” He pauses, looking down at the flannel duvet cover and then back at Piandao, eyes determined. “I’m going to try this again. Do you want, maybe, to tell people at work?” </p><p>“I’d love nothing more,” Piandao replies, warmth welling up in his chest like water from a spring. “I miss you at work.” Jeong Jeong exhales roughly, as if he’d been holding his breath, and tips slightly over so he can lean against Piandao’s side. </p><p>“You see me every day,” he says half-heartedly, but any faked annoyance quickly dissolves as Piandao starts petting through his hair, untangling a couple of knots and letting it fall on both sides of his face. </p><p>“Yes, but we’ve worked here for over a decade and-” Piandao wonders ever-so-briefly if he’s reopening a can of worms here, but forges on nonetheless. “-I’m tired of hiding. I know why you wanted it, and I wanted it too for a while, but it just - it took us so long to get here that I hate having to hide it.” He doesn’t realize the truth in that last statement until it’s left his mouth, and he stumbles over the last words before lapsing back into silence.</p><p>Jeong Jeong is quiet so long that Piandao starts to worry he’s said the wrong thing again, that they’re just going to end up right back where they’d started because he hadn’t even been this honest in the office the other day.</p><p>“I didn’t like it any more than you did,” he says finally. “Don’t look so surprised, you aren’t that good at hiding when you’re not enjoying yourself. The department parties? You looked miserable.”</p><p>“Oh, thanks.” </p><p>“Well, no one else noticed, but seriously. Miserable.” He’s right, of course, and Piandao hadn’t ever entertained the idea of fooling him completely but he’d hoped it wasn’t <em> that </em> obvious. It isn’t even like they run in the same conversational circles, and they hear quite enough about each other’s work at home, but people invariably show up in couples and it grates at him, not being able to stick to his husband’s side all evening like he wants. </p><p>At least people have stopped asking if he’s ever going to bring a plus-one, probably because he’s never given them a straight answer. </p><p>“Yeah, well, hopefully...that changes?” Piandao says, setting his laptop aside completely so Jeong Jeong can tuck himself all the way into his side.</p><p>“Why is that a question? We’ve been through it,” he replies, poking Piandao in the side a little too hard to be just teasing. “Zuko knows already, obviously, but we can do something at the party this year. Make up for all the other ones.”</p><p>“No capes,” Piandao says immediately, and can somehow feel the pout even though he can’t see it.</p><p>“Why not? I don’t think you get to be gay if you don’t like capes.”</p><p>“I like them just fine, but recall that the last time you wore one to a <em> thing </em> we were getting married. I don’t think I’ll let you leave my side if you do it again.”</p><p>“What’s to say that isn’t what I want? If we’re doing this thing then we’re doing it right.” There’s nothing less than stone-cold conviction in his voice, and Piandao can only smile. He’s found the fight replaying in his head more than once the past few nights; he’s learned to take sharp words as well as the next person but it’s always worse when it’s someone he loves because he knows how to hurt them back. But, staring up at the glow from the window and listening to Jeong Jeong breathe, he thinks over and over <em> you didn’t say it, and that’s love too. </em> He can’t take the words that he did say back but he can just keep trying to be better, the next day and the next day and the next day, and they’ve had a lot of next days already but this was never going to be easy, and he doesn’t ever want it to be. The flaws are part of them just as much as everything else is. </p><p>“Then we’ll do it right,” he echoes, and leans in to kiss him. </p><p>Jeong Jeong is in the kitchen in the morning, idly sipping from a bowl of bean soup and flipping through a geophysics journal, and Piandao stops in the doorway to do a little double-take. </p><p>“What are you still doing here?” he asks before his brain entirely catches up with his mouth. Jeong Jeong looks up and grins at him, looking soft and tousled in the cool grey light of the winter morning, and Piandao gravitates towards him like a magnet. </p><p>“‘S like you aren’t happy to see me,” he says, and Piandao snorts.</p><p>“No, not at all. What are you doing in my house?” He steals a sip of his tea as Jeong Jeong narrows his eyes at him, and then kisses the offense right off his mouth, slow and sweet. </p><p>“Waiting for you,” Jeong Jeong says when they part. “I’d be reading this in the office anyway.” <em> Waiting for- </em> Piandao can’t keep the smile off his face when he processes what that means. </p><p>“We’re walking in together, then?” he asks, leaning back against the table and reaching out to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. Jeong Jeong looks away, scrubbing at the back of his neck and immediately dislodging the strand, and that’s answer enough. “You’re a romantic, you know that? You don’t want to admit it, but I’m right.” </p><p>“I’m going to leave you behind,” Jeong Jeong grouses, whacking Piandao in the shoulder with his journal. </p><p>“I’d like to see you try.” </p><p>They get exactly zero looks when they appear through the double doors of the department together. Piandao waves at Emily, their receptionist, and receives a wave and a reminder to file his budgetary requests in return, and no comment on Jeong Jeong standing very prominently next to him. He feels a smile breaking across his face as he tugs Jeong Jeong into his own office, tucking his fingers through his belt loops to pull him in. </p><p>“Have a good day,” he says. Jeong Jeong’s eyes dart minutely over towards the still-open door, and Piandao holds back a wince, preparing to let go if he wants - but instead he looks back and kisses him quickly on the cheek. </p><p>“Go on with you,” he replies, and Piandao ducks in close to steal a proper kiss before letting the office door swing shut after him. </p><p>He can’t keep the grin off his face as he goes down the hall to his own office, and when he catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of the window he looks nearly starry-eyed, feeling like he’s young and in love again. He still feels the anxiety spiking in his chest, just a little, but it’s a good sort of different, it’s a change for the better and he has to remember that. That change can be good, if he wills it to be. </p><p>He’s three minutes into his lecture when Zuko hurries in, visibly blushing even under the low light. The apology he hisses out as he sinks into his seat is half-hearted at best, even though this is the first time he’s been late to class since Piandao’s known him. Piandao is concerned for all of ten seconds before he looks over and recognizes the look on his face because he’s seen it a million times in the mirror: soft and sort of dopey and best described as ‘lovestruck.’</p><p><em> Ah, </em> he thinks, and smiles. </p><p>“It’s nothing,” he tells Zuko when he asks why he looks so happy, and successfully distracts him with a key to the Hexagon and grins even harder when Zuko’s eyes light up and he practically makes grabby hands at it. He composes himself a moment later, taking it reverently and hooking it onto a woven lanyard that he digs out of his bag, but keeps looking down at it for the rest of their office hour like he can’t quite believe it’s real.</p><p>Piandao restrains himself enough not to follow Zuko to the door when he leaves, but in the following days he keeps catching glimpses of Sokka around the department. He shows up while Zuko is in lab, loitering in the corridors and inexplicably managing to type on his laptop while standing up, or kicked back in a chair in the department lobby. Once, he finds him in the kitchen making tea, and can’t help but notice that it’s the exact way he’s seen Zuko do it right down to the two drops of honey. </p><p>Jeong Jeong says that he’s going to give the game away by looking ‘insufferably smug’ whenever he sees the two of them around. Piandao maintains that he does no such thing.</p><p>“You’ll see it,” he tells him after Zuko’s darted out of the lab with a hurried apology, smiling down at something on his phone. “They’re not so different from us when we were their age, you know.” Jeong Jeong just scoffs.</p><p>“I fear for this generation, truly.”</p><p>“And what does that say about us?”</p><p>“Nothing. We weren’t that stupid.” Piandao rolls his eyes and kisses him on the cheek, accepting a cup of coffee and taking a long sip. It gets easier every time, doing this - less like something new and more like something that’s been missing all along. </p><p><em> What was I ever scared of? </em> he wonders as Jeong Jeong retrieves a cup of tea and leans back against one of the lab tables, still keeping a respectable couple of feet between them. It’s hard not to feel the last clutches of guilt these days, trying to make it all make sense in his own head. They could’ve avoided the whole last week of strife, not to mention maybe years worth of hiding, if only he’d known himself a little better - or, god forbid, talked to someone about it. </p><p>On some level, he understands the way Jeong Jeong rolls his eyes every time he sees couples around the department. It’s a sort of jealousy, almost, even though it feels patently stupid to be jealous of kids decades younger than him. His memories of their college years are mostly good, honestly, but they’d been all too quickly overshadowed by the bitter times after. Sometimes, he wonders what it would be like without that gulf, that divide that he doesn’t think will ever completely close. </p><p>But then again, if it hadn’t been that, it would’ve been something else. They’d both been too young then, too ambitious, too proud; not yet tempered by the whirlwind of academia and a little bit of tragedy and bound to go up in flames sooner or later. There’s no time limits on love, anyway, nothing to say that they can’t become one of those couples - and he knows they’re about to be, as soon as they’re through with whatever dramatic reveal Jeong Jeong is undoubtedly cooking up. </p><p>“Stop leaning against that microscope,” he says, shaking himself out of his own head. He has all the time to contemplate things in the middle of the night; their time at work is precious and he intends to relish in the novelty as long as he can.</p><p>“I’m nowhere near it,” Jeong Jeong answers, shifting a few inches to his left, and the ensuing bickering is normal as anything. </p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Jeong Jeong wears the cape to the party, because of course he does. It’s a new one, too, deep red with neat gold embroidery along the edges and made to fall half off one shoulder. Piandao has no idea when he’d found the time to make it without him seeing, but they’re very nearly late because he’d really had no other choice than to kiss him stupid when he’d come out in that. </p><p>They get their fair share of looks when they come in together, but it’s mostly because Jeong Jeong is terribly overdressed and proud of it. Piandao manages not to stick to his side all evening, but it’s a close thing. He’s helped along by the appearance of Toph, who whacks Jeong Jeong in the shin with her cane and yanks him off to the other side of the room where Zuko is looking awkward but determined with his hand in Sokka’s, who’s radiating <em> confused, but happy to be here </em> like a star. Piandao’s sure he’ll have made friends with everyone in the room by the end of the night and not entirely known how it happened.</p><p>All in all, it isn’t actually that different from any other party they’ve been to. Piandao makes the rounds, subtly keeping Jeong Jeong in his peripheral vision the entire time. He makes sure to say hello to every undergraduate he sees because he remembers how weird his first department parties, as either a student or a professor, had felt with no one to talk to. </p><p>He’s met with a duo of smiles when he makes his way over to Sokka and Zuko, one exuberant and one tentative, and grins indulgently back at them. </p><p>“Evening, Sokka. Zuko,” he says, and gets an overlapping address of ‘Professor’ and ‘Piandao’ and has to bite back a laugh. </p><p>“Happy holiday,” Sokka tells him, handing him a card with a really quite impressive painting of a few overlapping quartz crystals on the front. </p><p> “How’d you know my favourite mineral?” Piandao asks, overcome suddenly with fondness and thinking that he might need to stop denying that he has favourite students. Well, technically Sokka isn’t his student per se, but still.</p><p>“Zuko,” Sokka replies, looking apprehensive. “D’you like it?”</p><p>“Sokka, I love it,” he says earnestly, and the relief is evident on Sokka’s face. Zuko is looking panicked and trying to hide it, which probably means he’s forgotten that it’s a holiday at all and he’ll get something stupidly thoughtful on the day of the final. Piandao doesn’t blame him; he’s skipped who knows how many work events to do more work, and he’d seen his name on the lab sign-in sheet just earlier today.</p><p>He chats with the boys for a little longer before Ming from the oceanography department waves at him, and he’s been meaning to ask her opinion on a paper for months now. He nods at their still-joined hands with a wink as he makes his excuses, and leaves them with matching proud-but-sheepish expressions on their faces. Evidently, his matchmaking has worked out very well for the two of them. Maybe he’s in the wrong career. </p><p>Eventually, he gets drawn into the recurring yearly debate over whether ice is a mineral, facing off with a cohort of grad students as backup against two of the geology professors. It hasn’t ever been resolved, not since he’s been here, but it’s a ritual at this point.</p><p>It’s pushing ten pm when he looks over and makes eye contact with Zuko, who has a hold on one of Sokka’s hands as Sokka uses the other to draw something vaguely materials science-y on the chalkboard. Jeong Jeong and Toph are a couple feet away, engaged in something that involves a lot of people getting smacked with Toph’s cane and Jeong Jeong shouting types of soil, and Zuko just shrugs when Piandao cuts his gaze in their direction. </p><p>He decides it’s about time to save the populace from the combined menace of his husband and his advisee, and glances around the circle to see that the discussion has carried on nicely through his distraction.</p><p>“Well, I’ve got to get home,” he says. “My husband's probably wondering where I am,” and he relishes the way everyone’s eyebrows jump up. Well - not <em> where, </em>exactly, but he's allowing himself a bit of artistic license. “Goodnight, everyone.”</p><p>“Wait, where are you-” someone says amidst the chorus of goodnights as he walks off in the opposite direction from the door. He doesn’t answer, instead making a beeline for where Jeong Jeong is holding court and having just begun to build a cross-section out of books. He looks up when Piandao approaches and grins, pushing to his feet and shaking his clothes back into place.</p><p>“Time to go?” Piandao asks, pulling his coat over his shoulders. Jeong Jeong nods, and holds out his hand. </p><p>It’s like the room collectively freezes. They glance at each other, barely suppressing identical smug expressions, and Piandao takes it.</p><p>“Wait,” a couple voices say. Toph throws her head back and laughs, and she can’t even <em> see </em> them, come on. She gives them a satisfied smile as they sweep past towards the door, and Piandao is almost a hundred percent sure that she’ll be collecting frankly ridiculous amounts of money the minute they’re gone because apparently people have nothing better to do.</p><p>Jeong Jeong’s hand is warm in his, and he’s shaking a little bit but when Piandao hazards a glance over, the corner of his mouth is twitching with suppressed laughter so he’s pretty sure it’s nothing serious. They manage to keep their composure until the door has shut and they’re out of reasonable earshot of the party, and then it only takes one sidelong glance to send both of them into fits of giggles.</p><p>It’s snowing as they spill out onto the street, Jeong Jeong bright and laughing with his cape falling off his shoulder and the snowflakes catching in his now mostly-brown hair. </p><p>“That was so good,” he cackles, tossing one arm wide. “Did you see their faces?”</p><p>“That was fun,” Piandao agrees, still snickering at the image. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lot of those people look that shocked. Your kid looked pretty smug there, too.”</p><p>“So did yours,” Jeong Jeong retorts, but doesn’t dispute the term.</p><p>“Speaking of Zuko. Do you see it now?” Piandao asks, letting go of his hand for a second to tug his gloves on and then sticking both their hands into the pocket of his coat. “You spent, like, half the time with them.”</p><p>“Yeah, okay, I get it,” Jeong Jeong says, shaking his head in disbelief and pulling his cape out of reach, muttering something about crumpling the fabric. “It pains me to say it, but you’re right, they’re good for each other. Their stupid seems to cancel itself out.” Piandao snorts, pressing close against his side.</p><p>“I wouldn’t have said it like <em> that, </em> but yeah. Right?”</p><p>“Pian<em>dao.” </em> He sounds just this side of fondly exasperated, but continues before Piandao can apologize for asking again. “I never didn’t get it. Sokka doesn’t go here.”</p><p>“What?” Piandao says, wrinkling his nose in confusion. “He definitely goes to this school.”</p><p>“No, dumbass. No engineering major spends this much time in the <em> earth science </em> department and looks that happy about it.”</p><p>“Hey, what about Yihan, you know from mineralogy last semester? He was an engineer-” Jeong Jeong scoffs, poking him in the side.</p><p>“And he was taking your class to fulfill his elective requirement. He looked miserable every time I saw him. Yes, poor you, not everyone has inordinate amounts of passion for weird rocks.” </p><p>“I hate you,” Piandao complains, and he’s actually a little offended - okay, he understands that the science isn’t for everyone, but he’d really thought that Yihan had liked the class. </p><p>“I only speak the truth. Get well soon on the ego.” </p><p>“I love feeling supported in this household.” Piandao looks both ways and then steps into the crosswalk, glancing behind them to see their dark footprints in the light covering of snow. </p><p>“I live to serve,” Jeong Jeong singsongs, letting go of Piandao’s hand just to spin around in the middle of the street, cape flaring around his shoulders and sending loose flakes scattering. Piandao thinks his heart might burst, watching him. </p><p><em> I love you, </em> he thinks clearly, but speaking aloud might break the spell so in lieu of the words, he pulls him in close and presses his mouth into his hair, ignoring the cold burn of the snow. </p><p>“Anyway. Yeah,” Jeong Jeong continues, oblivious to the impossibly sappy expression that Piandao knows must be on his face right now, “no one would come to a party for a department they aren’t even in, two days before finals, if they didn’t have a good reason for it. And Sokka looked extraordinarily happy to be there, too. Even though that might just be what his face is like.”</p><p>“Leave him be, that’s just what he’s like,” Piandao replies, feeling honour-bound to defend his student but realizing too late that he’s basically just parroted what Jeong Jeong had said. </p><p>“No, it’s different. You know what you said that one time? About them and us.” </p><p>“What - that is the least helpful clue. Them and us?” He gets a look like he’s stupid, and racks his brains, mostly just to save face.</p><p>“Aren’t you meant to be able to read my mind or something? You’ve tried to convince me that they work well together, like, five times now.” <em> Convince me...about Zuko and Sokka... </em>oh. Piandao holds back the snort that threatens to escape, because of course Jeong Jeong knows exactly what he’s trying to say. He just doesn’t want to say it aloud.</p><p>“Oh. That they’re just like us? Come around to that now, have you?” </p><p>“I hate you too. But - yes,” Jeong Jeong mutters. “I’ve never actually wanted to go to one of these things.”</p><p>“Now I know that’s a lie,” Piandao replies, because he isn’t <em> that </em> good at faking enjoying things and he’d nearly seen him smile in the view of other people tonight.</p><p>“Would I lie to you?”</p><p>“If you thought it’d be funny, probably.” Jeong Jeong tips his head in acquiescence.</p><p>“Well, I’m not. Never liked them in grad school - should’ve been the first red flag, honestly. Didn’t like them when I got here, either, and then we were together and couldn’t tell anyone. It’s just been a straight zero out of ten the whole time.”</p><p>“Why’d you keep coming, then?” Piandao asks, feeling bemused - he’d just thought Jeong Jeong didn’t like them because he doesn’t like <em> people, </em> which isn’t expressly untrue but it seems like there’s more to it.</p><p>“You.” He says it like it’s the simplest thing in the world, conviction and nothing else, and Piandao loves him, so much he could yell from the rooftops about it, never mind that they’ve basically done just that tonight. “Don’t you see now? That boy’s a <em> people person </em> or whatever, but he’s there for Zuko.” </p><p>“And you’re here...for me.”</p><p>“Well, obviously. I’m not missing out on seeing you work a room.”</p><p>“Jay Jay-” Piandao coughs, but his mouth is fighting to smile. “They’re <em> colleagues, </em> not conference assholes, there is no room-working happening here.”</p><p>“Oh, whatever. Don’t know how you do it in that sweater, but, somehow it works.”</p><p>“Okay, mister colander hat, get back to me when you’re not stealing it on the weekends.” He gets cold fingers against his neck in retaliation, Jeong Jeong’s cheeks heating from more than the temperature. </p><p>“I admit to nothing.”</p><p>“Of course you don’t.” He tugs Jeong Jeong’s hand away, putting it into his coat pocket and then reaching over to brush some snow out of his hair and off the embroidered seams of the cape. When he looks up there’s crystals caught in his eyelashes, the yellow glow of the streetlights making melted droplets glimmer in his bangs, and it takes Piandao’s breath away as surely as it always has.</p><p>“What?” he says, and Piandao smiles, inexorable as the tide. He’ll never tire of this rush, of knowing this is the love of his life and he gets to have him.</p><p>“I love you.” </p><p>“I love you, too.”</p><p>He pulls him closer, and they walk on. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>i hope you liked it!! comments and kudos will make my day. i just...your honour, i love them so much. (<a href="https://pianjeong.tumblr.com">tumblr</a>)</p><p>-------</p><p>and your obligatory references, complete with pretty pictures<br/><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thin_section">thin sections</a><br/><a href="https://geologyscience.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Quartz-and-Hematite-Crystals.jpg">quartz crystals that sokka draws</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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